Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
The electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermoelectric power factor of PbTe/Pb1−xEuxTe quantum well structures are investigated theoretically. The variational method is employed. The anisotropy of effective masses, the multivalley character of the bulk semiconductors and also the dependence of effective masses in dimensional quantization subbands on the well width are taken into account. The carrier scattering both on optical and acoustical phonons is considered for structures with (111) and (100) crystallographic orientation. It is found that the power factor is larger in (100) oriented quantum wells. The results of recent experiments are discussed.