Thermoelectric power of tantalum-tungsten alloys

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Abstract
The absolute thermoelectric power of a series of Ta‐W alloy crystals was measured between 4.2 and 300 K. The diffusion component of the thermopower as a function of composition would be expected to be proportional to the change of the density of states at the Fermi level with respect to composition. This could not be confirmed unequivocally in this investigation because of the difficulty of differentiating between phonon‐drag and diffusion components. The derivative of the diffusion component of the thermopower with respect to temperature has a minimum near the electron/atom ratio of 5.5. The phonon‐drag component of the thermopower is positive for all of these alloys and is strongly attenuated by the addition of alloying elements to Ta. The phonon‐drag component of W is particularly sensitive to small alloy additions.