Concentration anomalies of the thermal conductivity in PbTe-PbSe semiconductor solid solutions

Studies of the concentration (0-3 mol% PbSe) and temperature (250-670 K) dependences of the lattice thermal conductivity lambda(p) in PbTe-PbSe semiconductor solid solutions have shown that in the range of 0.75-1.25 mol% PbSe an anomalous increase in lp under increasing PbSe concentration takes place in the lp isotherms, plotted as lambda(p)/lambda(p0), where lambda(p0) is the lattice thermal conductivity in the absence of PbSe. The observed effect is attributed to critical phenomena and self-organization processes accompanying the transition from dilute solid solutions to an impurity continuum.