Thermal conductivity of ErxSn1 − xSe (x ≤ 0.025) solid solutions

The thermal conductivity of ErxSn1 − xSe solid solutions has been measured at temperatures from 80 to 360 K. The results have been used to evaluate the electronic and lattice components of thermal conductivity for elastic carrier scattering, parabolic bands, and arbitrary degeneracy. With increasing erbium content and temperature, both the electronic and lattice components decrease considerably. Long-term annealing increases both components. It follows from the present experimental data that heat conduction in ErxSn1 − xSe is mainly due to phonons and that the observed rise in thermal resistance with Er content is due to phonon-phonon and paramagnetic-ion scattering.