arXiv:cond-mat/0105429v2 [cond-mat.supr-con] 8 Aug 20011 Heat and Charge Transport Properties of MgB2 Matthias Schneidera∗, Dieter Lippa, Alexander Gladuna, Peter Zahnb, Axel Handsteinc, G¨unter Fuchsc, Stefan-Ludwig Drechslerc, Manuel Richterc, Karl-Hartmut M¨ullerc, and Helge Rosnerd aInstitut f¨ur Tieftemperaturphysik, Technische Universit¨at Dresden, D-01062 Dresden, Germany bInstitut f¨ur Theoretische Physik, Technische Universit¨at Dresden, D-01062 Dresden, Germany cInstitut f¨ur Festk¨orper- und Werkstofforschung e. V., D-01171 Dresden, Postfach 270116, Germany dDepartment of Physics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA A polycrystalline sample of the MgB2superconductor was investigated by measurements of the electrical resistivity, the thermopower and the thermal conductivity in the temperature range between 1.8K and 300K in zero magnetic field. The electrical resistivity shows a superconducting transition atTc= 38.7K and, similarly to borocarbides, aT2.4behaviour up to 200K. The electron diffusion thermopower and its bandstructure-derived value indicate the dominant hole character of the charge carriers. The total thermopower can be explained by the diffusion term renormalized by a significant electron- phonon interaction and a phonon drag term. In the thermal conductivity, for decreasing temperature, a significant decrease belowTcis observed resulting in aT3behaviour below 7K. The reduced Lorenz number exhibits values smaller than 1 and a characteristic minimum which resembles the behaviour of non-magnetic borocarbides. Keywords: 74.25.Fy - Thermopower and thermal conductivity, 74.70.Ad - Magnesium Diboride, 74.70.Dd - Borocarbides. 1. INTRODUCTION After the surprising discovery of superconduc- tivity up to about 40K in MgB2[1] extensive in- vestigations of its physical properties have been performed. Special interest is focused on the elec- tronic structure and in particular, on the type of the charge carriers, and their relationship to the superconducting pairing mechanism.Numerous studies are devoted to thermodynamic properties such as the specific heat [2–5] and the upper crit- ical field [6–10]. However, there are less reports published on the transport properties of MgB2and only few on the heat transport. Results of previous investiga- tions of the electrical resistivityρdiffer not only in the residual resistivity but also in the tempera- ture dependence [6,11–13]. First measurements of the thermopowerS[14–16] and the thermal con- ductivityκ[17] show a significant non-linearity inS(T) in the temperature range close to room temperature and rather high values for the Lorenz number derived from the reported data ofκ(T) ∗E-mail: schneid@physik.phy.tu-dresden.de andρ(T). Such measurements are of general in- terest since they provide additional insight into the electronic structure and the electron-phonon interaction. In the present paper, zero magnetic field measurements of thermal and charge trans- port properties of MgB2are reported.Since at present the pairing mechanism has not been set- tled yet the comparison with related supercon- ductors might be helpful to elucidate further de- tails of the superconductivity in MgB2.In this context also similarities and differences with the behaviour of well studied non-magnetic borocar- bides will be discussed. 2. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS Theexperimentswereperformedona polycrystallinesampleofMgB2ofabout 5×1.2×1.2mm3. It was cut from a pellet which was prepared by a conventional solid state reac- tion as described elsewhere [7]. The x-ray diffrac- tion pattern of powder ground from this sample batchhaveshownthatthematerialissingle phased. To investigate the thermopowerS, two copper
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