Thermoelectric power factor in superlattice systems

A formalism is given for the power factor for thermoelectric transport in quantum well and wire superlattices using full electronic band structure and the complete inelastic Boltzmann equations for carrier-phonon scattering. Detailed calculations are given for realistic PbTe quantum well and quantum wire superlattices. In the quantum well case the dependence of the power factor on potential is much weaker than in previous work, and its behavior is traced to the underlying physics. Results are also given for the dependence of the power factors on growth direction. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)03931-0].