English

Unified thermopower in the variable range hopping regime

Materials Science 2009-02-03 v1

Abstract

Since nearly 4 decades, various theoretical behaviours have been found for the thermopower in the variable range hopping regime. In 1969, Cutler and Mott have predicted a linear variation with temperature T of the thermopower: S = const.T. In the seventies, it has beenfound by Zvyagin, Overhof and Mott that S = const.T(1/2). In 1986, Triberis and Friedman have found S = const.T^(-1/4) . But there is up to now no theoretical formulation of the thermopower when this one is T-independent. By choosing a specific distribution for the density of states, we show in this paper that all behaviours above can be unified in a unique thermopower formula. We find in addition with this formula, a T-independent expression given by: S=(L/xi)(k/e), in which xi is the wave function decay length and L is a characteristic length, depending on the form of the density of states.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0902.0200,
  title  = {Unified thermopower in the variable range hopping regime},
  author = {Said Boutiche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0902.0200},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:06:54.686Z