Influence of structural defects on the thermal conductivity of polycrystalline and single-crystal PbTe

We have measured the thermal conductivity of unannealed and annealed (800 K, 120 h) polycrystalline and single-crystal PbTe samples at temperatures from 80 to 303 K, evaluated the electronic and lattice components of their thermal conductivity, and determined the thermal resistivity due to structural defects, whose concentration in the unannealed single-crystal samples reaches ∼10 17 cm −3 . The results demonstrate that the thermal resistivity of the unannealed polycrystalline and single-crystal samples is 9.4 and 1.7 cm K/W, respectively. Annealing eliminates the defects, thereby increasing the lattice thermal conductivity of the material.