Thermoelectric figure of merit of strongly correlated superlattice semiconductors

Abstract

The Anderson lattice Hamiltonian was solved using the slave-boson mean-field approximation to get the energy bands of a strongly correlated semiconductor. The transport properties were calculated in the relaxation-time approximation, and the thermoelectric figure of merit was obtained for the strongly correlated semiconductor and a variety of superlattice structures. We found that at room temperature the dimensionless quantity $\mathrm{ZT}$, thermoelectric figure of merit multiplied by temperature, can reach nearly 1.4 for a quantum wire lattice structure. We believe that it may be possible to find high values of the figure of merit for strongly correlated superlattice semiconductors.