Thermopower anisotropy in the layered compound PbSb2Te4

Abstract

The possible origin of the considerable anisotropy of the Seebeck coefficient in crystals of the multicomponent layered compound p-PbSb2Te4 is analyzed. It is shown that the experimental data on the thermopower anisotropy in p-PbSb2Te4, together with the temperature dependences of the electrical conductivity along the trigonal axis and in the cleavage plane, can be explained by in terms of a one-band spectrum model and a mixed mechanism of hole scattering under the assumption that scattering from acoustic phonons and impurity ions is dominant in the cleavage plane and along the C 3 trigonal axis, respectively.