Skutterudites CoSb3 are considered interesting candidates for thermoelectric applications, because the filling of guest atoms into the cage-like structure has the potential to improve its thermoelectric properties by an increased phonon scattering, which reduces the thermal conductivity. This, however, requires that a high electrical conductivity is maintained. In this study, we performed resistivity, Hall effect, and fluctuation spectroscopy measurements on polycrystalline thin films of semiconducting with . Our aim is to better understand the conventional dc electronic transport but also the low-frequency dynamical properties of the charge carriers. The electronic properties are highly sensitive to the filling factor z as well as other parameters, e.g., the Sb content. The resistivity can be described by Mott variable range hopping at low temperatures. A large 1/f noise level suggests an influence of the granularity of the polycrystalline thin films. By analyzing the 1/f-noise and two-level fluctuations, which are abundant for filled samples annealed at 500 °C, we are able to determine the energy distribution of the relevant electronic switching processes. A likely explanation for the observed low-frequency dynamics is capture/emission processes of impurities with a broad distribution within the energy gap.
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14 October 2016
Research Article|
August 25 2016
Electronic transport in thermoelectric skutterudite thin films studied by resistance noise spectroscopy
M. Lonsky;
M. Lonsky
a)
1Institute of Physics,
Goethe-University Frankfurt
, 60438 Frankfurt (M), Germany
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S. Heinz;
S. Heinz
1Institute of Physics,
Goethe-University Frankfurt
, 60438 Frankfurt (M), Germany
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M. V. Daniel;
M. V. Daniel
2Institute of Physics,
Technical University Chemnitz
, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
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M. Albrecht;
M. Albrecht
2Institute of Physics,
Technical University Chemnitz
, 09107 Chemnitz, Germany
3Institute of Physics,
University of Augsburg
, 86159 Augsburg, Germany
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J. Müller
J. Müller
1Institute of Physics,
Goethe-University Frankfurt
, 60438 Frankfurt (M), Germany
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a)
Electronic mail: [email protected]
This paper is part of the Special Topic “Cutting Edge Physics in Functional Materials” published in J. Appl. Phys. 120, 14 (2016).
J. Appl. Phys. 120, 142101 (2016)
Article history
Received:
April 14 2016
Accepted:
May 28 2016
Citation
M. Lonsky, S. Heinz, M. V. Daniel, M. Albrecht, J. Müller; Electronic transport in thermoelectric skutterudite thin films studied by resistance noise spectroscopy. J. Appl. Phys. 14 October 2016; 120 (14): 142101. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4961703
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