Does the thermopower of ionic conductors depend on carrier mobilities?

Alois Würger (1)

1 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

We theoretically study the thermoelectric response of ionic conductors to an applied temperature gradient. As a main result we find that open and closed systems with respect to charge exchange, result in different expressions for the thermopower which may even take opposite signs. For the experimentally most relevant zero-current steady state, we show that the thermopower of ionic conductors does not depend on the mobilities, contrary to what is known for metals and semiconductors. The different behavior of ionic and electronic conductors is traced back to the unlike conservation laws for ionic carriers and electron-hole pairs.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Alois Würger. Does the thermopower of ionic conductors depend on carrier mobilities?. 2020. ⟨hal-02973302v1⟩