PHONON DRAG IN LEAD

Abstract

We have carried out measurements on the thermoelectric power of dilute alloys of lead with the solutes Cd, In, Sn, Tl, and Bi in order to test a plausible hypothesis that much of the thermoelectric behavior of pure lead at low temperatures can be ascribed to phonon drag. The results are qualitatively consistent with the phonon-drag picture only if it is assumed that the scattering of phonons by these impurities depends more critically on the valence difference between solvent and solute than on the mass difference.