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The Influence Of Ni On The Transport Properties Of Cosb3, C. Uher, Jeffrey Dyck, W. Chen, G. Meisner, J. Yang

Jeffrey Dyck

The effect of Ni doping on the Co site of the binary skutterudite CoSb3 is investigated. We measured resistivity, Hall effect, magnetoresistance, thermopower, thermal conductivity, and magnetization of a series of samples of the form Co1-xNixSb3 with x in the range x=0 to x=0.01. We find that Ni takes the tetravalent state Ni4+, assumes the d6 electronic configuration for the lower energy non-bonding orbitals, and gives an electron to the conduction band. Ni doping dramatically suppresses the thermal conductivity, changes the temperature dependence of the thermopower, and increases the carrier concentration. Low temperature anomalies in thermopower, Hall coefficient and magnetoresistance …