Effective mass and Fermi surface complexity factor from ab initio band structure calculations

The effective mass is a convenient descriptor of the electronic band structure used to characterize the density of states and electron transport based on a free electron model. While effective mass is an excellent first-order descriptor in real systems, the exact value can have several definitions, each of which describe a different aspect of electron transport. Here we use Boltzmann transport calculations applied to ab initio band structures to extract a density-of-states effective mass from the Seebeck Coefficient and an inertial mass from the electrical conductivity to characterize the band structure irrespective of the exact scattering mechanism. We identify a Fermi Surface Complexity Factor: $${N}_{{\rm{v}}}^{\ast }{K}^{\ast }$$Nv*K* from the ratio of these two masses, which in simple cases depends on the number of Fermi surface pockets $$({N}_{{\rm{v}}}^{\ast })$$(Nv*) and their anisotropy K*, both of which are beneficial to high thermoelectric performance as exemplified by the high values found in PbTe. The Fermi Surface Complexity factor can be used in high-throughput search of promising thermoelectric materials.Electronic materials: In search of the right massA simple method for determining a material’s thermoelectric properties is developed by researchers in the United States and Belgium. Jeffrey Snyder from Northwestern University and his co-workers’ model could simplify the search for materials that efficiently generate electricity from waste heat. Even though the environment of an electron in a solid is very complex, the way an electron moves through a solid’s lattice of atoms can be treated as if it is moving in free space. However, because of the influence of its environment an effective mass, not its true mass, is used to model the movement of electrons and that material’s properties. But this effective-mass can be defined in several ways depending on which material property is being modeled. Snyder et al. determine that the ratio of two different effective masses, as computed from different electronic properties, could be a good method to identify novel thermoelectric materials and can be associated with the “complexity” of the electronic structure.