Electric-field-effect thermoelectrics

A significantly large thermoelectric "figure of merit" in a bipolar semiconductor is achieved by converting it, by doping, into an essentially monopolar semiconductor. We show here, that for a bipolar semiconductor film, having a thickness smaller than the screening length, there is an alternative to doping to obtain a practically monopolar semiconductor. The electric-field effect (EFE) or the ferroelectric-field effect can be used to quench the concentration of one type of charge carriers. We show that this method is particularly suited for narrow-gap semiconductors and for semimetals, having sufficiently high dielectric permittivity. We also show that this "EFE doping" is free from the drawbacks of conventional doping. Our analysis demonstrates that increased values of the figure of merit are feasible. We present here the theory and the figure-of-merit calculation for typical cases of the bipolar semiconductor thermoelectric film under EFE doping. Numerical results for a film of the PbTe type are presented. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.