Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2012
We present a theoretical investigation of the thermal conductivity for n-type doped Bi2(Te0.85Se0.15)3 single crystals by using the Debye model within the single-mode relaxationtime approximation. A detailed account of alloy, electron-phonon, phonon-phonon and electron-hole pair (bipolar) interactions are included. Different levels (0.1 and 0.05 wt.%) of n-doping from CuBr and SbI3 dopants were considered. The calculated conductivity, by combining lattice (κ ph) and electronic bipolar (κ bp) contributions, successfully explains the experimental results obtained by Hyun et al. [J. Mat. Sci. 33 5595 (1998)]. The κ ph contribution was calculated using Srivastava’s scheme and the κ bp contribution was obtained by employing Price’s theory.