https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-40335-5
Regular Article
Theoretical investigation on the electronic and thermoelectric properties of RuSb2Te compound
1 Department of Physics, Nanjing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing
210016, P.R.
China
2 National Laboratory of Solid State
Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University,
Nanjing
210093, P.R.
China
a
e-mail: kongshi@nuaa.edu.cn
Received:
11
April
2013
Received in final form:
3
August
2013
Published online:
1
November
2013
The skutterudites are an excellent candidate for thermoelectric materials used in mechanic free heat pump and electric generator. Using the ab initio density functional theory we have calculated the electronic band structure and thermoelectric properties of skutterudite RuSb2Te. RuSb2Te compound belongs to an indirect band gap semiconductor. The density of states has a sharp upturn at the conduction band edge and is very low at the valence band top. This feature suggests that Seebeck coefficient is larger for n doped than for p doped RuSb2Te compound. The calculated Seebeck coefficient confirms this trend. It is in a qualitative agreement with the experiments if the temperature is not too high.
Key words: Solid State and Materials
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag, 2013
