Phonon focusing and electron–phonon drag in semiconductor crystals with degenerate charge-carrier statistics

Abstract

We study the effect of anisotropy in elastic properties on the electron–phonon drag and thermoelectric phenomena in gapless semiconductors with degenerate charge-carrier statistics. It is shown that phonon focusing leads to a number of new effects in the drag thermopower at low temperatures, when diffusive phonon scattering from the boundaries is the predominant relaxation mechanism. We analyze the effect of phonon focusing on the dependences of the thermoelectromotive force (thermopower) in HgSe:Fe crystals on geometric parameters and the heat-flow directions relative to the crystal axes in the Knudsen regime of the phonon gas flow. The crystallographic directions that ensure the maximum and minimum values of the thermopower are determined and the role of quasi-longitudinal and quasi-transverse phonons in the drag thermopower in HgSe:Fe crystals at low temperatures is analyzed. It is shown that the main contribution to the drag thermopower comes from slow quasi-transverse phonons in the directions of focusing in long samples.