Nernst-Ettingshausen effect in polycrystalline bismuth at high temperature

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Abstract
High-temperature (275-K) measurements of the Nernst-Ettingshausen effect in pure polycrystalline bismuth samples are reported here. A simple theoretical approach in the relaxation-time approximation in the Boltzmann-equation formalism fits the experimental results well. The presented model is a multicarrier one, taking into account electrons in the conduction band and two additional carriers: the light and heavy holes in the valence band. The model allows us to obtain the dominant scattering process and the relaxation time for each kind of carrier as well as some important band parameters, such as effective masses and density of carriers. The measured values of the resistance and magnetoresistance are reasonably well predicted by the model. A comparative study of our experimental results with those measured on single crystals by other authors is carried out.