Experimental electrical resistivity and thermopower of molten germanium interpreted with muffin-tin potential calculations

Abstract

We present our new accurate measurements on the electrical resistivity and thermopower of liquid germanium as a function of temperature. To interpret our data we used ab initio calculations of the electrical resistivity and of the thermoelectric power Q(E) of liquid germanium as a function of energy. The calculations have been performed within a self-consistent method in which the conduction band bottom has been matched with the muffin tin zero. Various potentials have been used especially the potential based on the Hartree-Fock formalism and the potential derived from the density functional theory which take into account the exchange and correlation effects. As result the new prescriptions improve significantly the resistivity and the thermopower with respect to the methods commonly used.