hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
This work presents a systematic study on the optical and transport
properties of the Heusler compound PtYSb. The optical properties were
investigated in a wide spectral range from 10 meV to 6.5 eV and compared
to ab-initio calculations. For photon energies below 2.5 eV, the optical
absorption increases linearly with photon energy. This is related with
the conical shape of the electronic structure in the vicinity of the
Fermi energy. The optical spectra reveal a maximum band gap of about 60
meV. Furthermore, the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity,
electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient and Hall mobility were
investigated. PtYSb exhibits very good thermoelectric properties with a
high figure of merit ZT of 0.2 and a Hall mobility mu(h) of 300 cm(2)/Vs
at 350K, which is the highest value obtained for Heusler compounds up to
now. The carrier concentration ranges from 5 x 10(18) at low temperature
to 10(19) cm(-3) at 400K. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics.
[doi:10.1063/1.3663569]
