Effects of Nonparabolicity on Electron Thermopower of Size-Quantized Semiconductor Films

Abstract

Effects of nonparabolicity of energy band on thermopower, in-plane effective mass and Fermi energy are investigated in size-quantized semiconductor films in a strong while non-quantized magnetic field. We obtain the expressions of these quantities as functions of thickness, concentration and nonparabolicity parameter. The influence of nonparabolicity is studied for degenerate and non-degenerate electron gases, and it is shown that nonparabolicity changes the character of thickness and the concentration dependence of thermopower, in-plane effective mass and Fermi energy. Moreover, the magnitudes of these quantities significantly increase with respect to the nonparabolicity parameter in the case of strong nonparabolicity in nano-films. The concentration dependence is also studied, and it is shown that thermopower increases when the concentration decreases. These results are in agreement with the experimental data.