Thermoelectric enhancement in PbTe with K, Na co-doping from tuning the interaction of the light and heavy hole valence bands

The effect of K and K-Na substitution for Pb atoms in the rock salt lattice of PbTe was investigated to test a hypothesis for development of resonant states in the valence band that may enhance the thermoelectric power. We combined high temperature Hall-effect, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity measurements to show that K-Na co-doping do not form resonance states but2 can control the energy difference of the maxima of the two primary valence sub-bands in PbTe. This leads to an enhanced interband interaction with rising temperature and a significant rise in the thermoelectric figure of merit of p-type PbTe. The experimental data can be explained by a combination of a single and two-band model for the valence band of PbTe depending on hole density that varies in the range of 1-15 x 10^19 cm^-3.