Electrical and thermoelectric properties of PbSe doped with Sm

The electrical conductivity (σ), Seebeck coefficient (S) and power factor (S2σ) of Pb1−xSmxSe (x = 0.00, 0.03, 0.06 and 0.09) annealed at 215 °C for different time periods have been investigated in the temperature range of 90-450 K to explore the effect of Sm doping and time of annealing on the PbSe thermoelectric performance. The XRD analysis does not exhibit any deviation from the characterizing rock-salt structure with changing the Sm amount or annealing time. Increasing Sm content resulted in increasing the activation energy as the character of other magnetic dopants. The thermoelectric measurements show that all samples are n-type semiconductor and the modulus value of Seebeck coefficient increases with increasing Sm content from x = 0.00 to 0.06. The highest value of power factor 83.8 μW cm−1 K−2 has been recorded for Pb0.94Sm0.06Se sample annealed for 180 min. The results indicate that samarium can be introduced as a dopant for PbSe to enhance its thermoelectric performance.