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Weighted Mobility
G. Jeffrey Snyder,* Alemayouh H. Snyder, Maxwell Wood, Ramya Gurunathan,
Berhanu H. Snyder, and Changning Niu

the charge transport is dominated by a

Engineering semiconductor devices requires an understanding of charge car- single band, the Hall mobility is a good
rier mobility. Typically, mobilities are estimated using Hall effect and electrical estimate (within 10–20%) for the the drift
resistivity meausrements, which are are routinely performed at room tem- mobility.[5]
perature and below, in materials with mobilities greater than 1 cm2 V-1 s-1. With the proliferation of Seebeck coef-
With the availability of combined Seebeck coefficient and electrical resistivity ficient measurement systems, particularly
in laboratories studying thermoelectric
measurement systems, it is now easy to measure the weighted mobility (elec-
materials,[6,7] the weighted mobility is an
tron mobility weighted by the density of electronic states). A simple method independent measurement giving sim-
to calculate the weighted mobility from Seebeck coefficient and electrical ilar information. This can be particularly
resistivity measurements is introduced, which gives good results at room helpful when there are other magnetic
temperature and above, and for mobilities as low as 10−3 cm2 V-1 s-1, effects to consider in the Hall measure-
  ments, such as the anomalous Hall effect,
 |S|  3 |S|
 exp  − 2  and the measured Hall resistance does
( )
−
2  mΩ cm  3/2
 k B /e  π k B /e
2
µ w = 331 cm   T  +  not seem to correlate well with the actual
Vs  ρ  300K    |S|    |S|  charge carrier concentration (RH = 1/enH)
1 + exp −5  k /e − 1 1 + exp 5  − 1
 B    k B /e  or mobility.[8] The weighted mobility meas-
Here, μw is the weighted mobility, ρ is the electrical resistivity measured in urement is also practicable in regimes
where the Hall resistivity measurement is
mΩ cm, T is the absolute temperature in K, S is the Seebeck coefficient, and
difficult, such as at high temperatures or
kB/e = 86.3 µV K–1. Weighted mobility analysis can elucidate the electronic with low mobility bulk systems.[2,9]
structure and scattering mechanisms in materials and is particularly helpful The weighted mobility, like the Hall
in understanding and optimizing thermoelectric systems. mobility, can be defined as a simple func-
tion of two measured properties (Figure 1),
Seebeck coefficient S and electrical conduc-
tivity σ (the Hall mobility is a function of
Charge carrier mobility is perhaps the most important material Hall resistance and electrical conductivity). The function used for
parameter to experimentally characterize in order to understand weighted mobility and Hall mobility are derived from the simple
or engineer semiconductor electronic devices. The optimization free electron model using a constant mean-free-path. Equation (1)
of carrier mobility is critical to research fields ranging from is a simple analytic form for the weighted mobility that approxi-
organic semiconductors to photovoltaics to thermoelectrics.[1–3] mates the exact Drude–Sommerfeld free electron model within
Mobility is usually defined with the Drude–Sommerfeld free 3% for thermopower values |S| > 20 μV K−1.
electron model 1/ρ = σ = neμ where ρ is the electrical resis-
tivity, σ is the electrical conductivity, n is the charge carrier   |S |  
− 2 3 |S |
concentration, e the electronic charge, and μ the drift mobility.  exp  
3h σ
3
  B
k / e  π kB /e
2

Historically, the easiest way to characterize mobility is through µw = 3/2  + 
the Hall effect, where the Hall mobility can be defined as μH = 8 π e ( 2m e k BT )  
 1 + exp −5 | S |    |S | 

  −1 1 + exp 5  − 1 
σRH with RH as the Hall resistance.[4] In most cases where    kB /e   kB /e  
(1)
Prof. G. J. Snyder, R. Gurunathan, B. H. Snyder
Department of Materials Science and Engineering An equivalent form using the electrical resistivity ρ = 1/σ is
Northwestern University given in the abstract.
Evanston, IL 60208, USA In the free electron model, the weighted mobility is a (tem-
E-mail: jeff.snyder@northwestern.edu perature dependent) material property that is independent of
A. H. Snyder, R. Gurunathan, Dr. C. Niu doping whereas the drift mobility depends on doping through
QuesTek Innovations LLC
Evanston, IL 60201, USA
the free charge carrier concentration n. Generally, the weighted
mobility μw is related to the drift mobility μ by
The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article
can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202001537. m* 
3/2

µw ≈ µ   (2)
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202001537  me 

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semiconductors or metals (Figure 2). In some materials, grain

Figure 1. Mobility measurements using the Hall or Seebeck effects. Hall
mobility μH is measured using the Hall effect (in a magnetic field B) and
electrical resistivity, while the weighted mobility μw is measured using
measurements of the Seebeck effect (voltage produced from a tempera-
ture difference Th − Tc) and electrical resistivity.
where m* is the density of states effective mass and me is
the electron mass. Because the density of electron states is
proportional to m*3/2, we think of μw as the electron mobility
weighted by the density of electron states.
The measured weighted mobilities of well known thermo-
electric semiconductors such as PbTe[10] and Mg3Sb2[11] are
essentially the same as the Hall mobility except for the density
of states m*3/2 factor in μw (Figure 2). Indeed, combining Hall,
Seebeck, and conductivity measurements to estimate a density
of states effective mass is a common analysis technique.[5,12,13]
For example, the weighted mobility of most good thermoelec-
tric materials decreases with temperature because the electrons
are scattered by phonons. In the simple model for acoustic-
phonon scattering (or deformation potential phonon scattering
theory), the decrease in weighted mobility occurs with tem-
perature as T−3/2 whereas the Hall mobility transitions between
T−3/2 for lightly doped semiconductors to T−1 for heavily doped
boundary,[14] disorder,[15] or ionized impurity scattering[16] might
contribute, which will be observed in different temperature
and carrier concentration dependencies of the mobility. The
weighted mobility gives nearly the same information about
charge carrier mobility as the Hall mobility and thus can be
used to investigate charge carrier transport mechanisms much
in the same way the Hall mobility has been used.
Because of the relative ease of Seebeck compared to Hall
effect measurements, the weighted mobility could easily
become the most common method to determine the charge
transport mechanism. Some 4000 samples have Seebeck
and conductivity measurements readily available on Starry-
Data2[17] whereas only relatively few samples have reported
Hall effect data. Compiling the 153 samples with both See-
beck coefficient and electrical conductivity as a function
of temperature (Figure 3), it is clear from the decreasing
mobility with temperature that phonon scattering of the
charge carriers typically dominates. A few samples show
weighted mobility increasing with temperature at low
temperature before following the usual trend of decreasing
with temperature (phonon scattering). In several cases this
increasing mobility with temperature has been attributed
to thermally activated conductivity at grain boundaries,[14,18]
although ionized impurity scattering can also give a qualita-
tively similar effect.
Particularly for materials with low mobility, the weighted
mobility appears to be an even better measure of drift mobility
than measurements of Hall mobility. The same data, showing
weighted mobility on a logarithmic scale (Figure 3b) gives
reasonable trends even for materials with weighted mobility
less than 10−3 cm2 V−1 s−1. Hall mobility is not commonly
reported on materials with mobility less than 1 cm2 V−1 s−1
because the signal is very small.[4] The low weighted mobilities
increase with temperature suggesting defects (grain bound-
aries, ionized impurities) are responsible for the low
mobility and higher mobilities are possible with defect or
microstructure engineering.

Figure 2. Similar behavior of Hall mobility μH and weighted mobility μw, which uses measurements of the Seebeck coefficient. A) The μH and μw of
n-type PbTe (StarryData2 Paper ID 117[10]) are both monotonously decreasing with temperature as expected from increased phonon scattering and
simply scaled by the density-of-states effective mass m *3/2 / me3/2 ≈ 0.25. The Hall mobility μH is expected to decrease with increasing doping,[10] but the
weighted mobility μw is expected to be similar for samples with different doping as observed. B) The mobility of polycrystalline n-type Mg3Sb1.5Bi0.5[11]
is suppressed at low temperature due to electrical resistance at grain boundaries. This effect is observed equally (scaled by m *3/2 /me3/2 ≈ 1.8) in both
μH and μw for samples with differing grain size.

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Figure 3. Weighted mobility calculated from the reported Seebeck coef-
ficient and electrical conductivity of 153 samples from the StarryData2
website.[17] The weighted mobilities generally decrease with temperature
(linear scale above) as expected from phonon scattering of electrons.
Several samples show physically reasonable values for mobility less than
1 cm2 V−1 s−1 (log scale below) which is very difficult to measure using
the Hall effect.
The weighted mobility, like the Hall mobility, can be used
to compare the experimental properties of materials to help
decide if different properties are due to differences in doping,
electronic structure or scattering. An ideal material that fol-
lows the Drude–Sommerfeld model exactly with a parabolic
band will have a weighted mobility that does not change with
doping; any differences could be a sign of complexity in the
band structure or scattering, such as nonparabolic bands or
multiple bands. Scattering differences are most easily seen in
the temperature dependence where departures from simple
phonon scattering will give a deviation from the simple T3/2.
For example, low mobility below room temperature could be a
sign of grain boundary resistance[14,18]
The weighted mobility is even more important when stud-
ying thermoelectric materials as it most directly measures the
electronic qualities that make a good thermoelectric material.
The thermoelectric figure of merit zT is optimized with doping.
The zT that an optimally doped material can achieve is propor-
tional to the thermoelectric quality factor B[12,13,19]
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 k  8 π e (2m ekBT )
2 3/2
µw
B= B ⋅ T (3)
e 3h 3 κL
which is proportional to the weighted mobility divided by the
lattice thermal conductivity μw/κL. Thus any strategy to improve
a material for thermoelectric use by reducing κL needs also to
consider the effect on μw.
The weighted mobility, μw, is a better descriptor of the inherent
electronic transport properties of a thermoelectric material for
thermoelectric use than S2σ, and now with the use of Equation
(1), is almost as easy to calculate from the experimental S and ρ.
Historically, S2σ, referred to as the thermoelectric “power factor”
has been discussed to evaluate improvements in the electronic
properties of thermoelectric materials or when thermal conduc-
tivity measurements are unavailable. However, S2σ depends
on doping and does not optimize where zT does, overempha-
sizing more metallic doping concentrations because it ignores
the impact of the electronic thermal conductivity to zT. S2σ
is frequently overanalyzed to the point where it is incorrectly
concluded that a high S2σ is preferable even at the expense of
lower zT.[20] An optimized thermoelectric design will produce
more power using a material with higher zT because the higher
efficiency ensures it will produce more power from the heat
flowing through it.[21] Therefore, rather than comparing S2σ, it
is more useful to compare μw values.
It is important to note that the definition of μw using
Equation (1) from the measured quantities S and ρ does not
require any assumptions. Nonparabolic, multiband, alternate
scattering, and other effects in the data are not neglected.
These effects will be noticed as deviations from trends not
expected from the simple free electron model (μw(EF) = con-
stant) that should be explainable by incorporating the relevant
physics in a model for μw that then can be compared with the
experimental values.
Indeed, prior discussions of weighted mobility, using
Equation (2) as the definition,[22–24] have relied on parabolic
band and scattering assumptions. This begs the question
as to the validity in real materials where these assumptions
are demonstrably incomplete. Here, in contrast, we define
weighted mobility as an experimental value with Equation (1),
and use Equation (2) only to interpret the experimental result.
Equations (1) and (3) are motivated from the ideal expression
for μw of the free electron (parabolic band) Drude–Sommerfeld
model with constant mean-free-path (same result as acoustic
phonon scattering, s = 1 in ref. [25]). This requires solving the
following two parametric equations for the transport coefficient
σ E0 as a function of S and ρ, where η (the reduced Fermi level)
is the parameter:
1/ρ = σ = neµ = σ E0 ⋅ ln(1 + eη ) (4)
8 π e (2m ekBT )
3/2
σ E0 = µ w (5)
3h 3
∞ ε 
∫ ε −η
dε 
k 1+ e
S= B 0 − η  (6)
e  ln(1 + eη ) 
 
 
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  |S | 
The numerator on the left side of Equation (1) exp  − 2 is
  kB /e 
the analytic result in the non-degenerate limit (η ≪ 0, intrinsic
semiconductor), while the numerator on the right side of
 3 |S | 
Equation (1)   is the analytic result for the degenerate
 π kB /e 
2
limit (η ≫ 0, metal). The functions in the denominators are sig-
moid functions with parameters (5 and 1) that give a maximum
error of 3% to the exact Drude–Sommerfeld result. A smaller
maximum error could be achieved with more precise parame-
ters (e.g., 5.34 and 1.14) but 3% is within the typical uncertainty
of Seebeck and resistivity measurements.
In real materials, the Seebeck coefficient and electrical resis-
tivity can be affected by many mechanisms not accounted for
in the free electron model. At low temperatures and materials
with high lattice thermal conductivity, for example, the Seebeck
coefficient is strongly affected by phonon drag and so the Hall
mobility has been a better descriptor for mobility of simple
crystalline materials for low temperature physics rather than
the weighted mobility.
However, the weighted mobility is preferable to Hall mobility
for many samples under certain conditions. For example,
at high temperatures and for complex materials with low
mobility, the Hall resistance can be difficult or even not pos-
sible to measure, whereas the Seebeck coefficient may be
easy to measure. Practical examples of such systems include
organic semiconductors as well as complex solar cell and ther-
moelectric materials.[2,26] Many of the examples in Figure 3
have such low weighted mobilities that Hall effect measure-
ments are not possible and often not attempted. La3−xTe4[27] and
Yb14MnSb11,[28] for example, are good thermoelectric materials
with decent mobility, on the order of 2 cm2 V−1 s−1, but the Hall
coefficient is barely measurable. Materials in Figure 3 with even
lower mobility are likely not possible to measure by Hall effect
in bulk form. Also, materials with magnetic elements or impu-
rities often have Hall effect that is not interpretable as charge
carrier concentration. This is likely due to the anomalous Hall
effect from the internal magnetism or magnetic impurities.
For example, rare-earth filled iron-based skutterudites[8] have
Hall coefficients that do not correlate well with other electronic
transport properties.
The Hall mobility μH = σRH and Hall concentration
nH = 1/eRH as used here[4] is the simple degenerate limit of
the Drude–Sommerfeld model. The Drude–Sommerfeld drift
mobility and Hall mobility decreases with charge carrier con-
centration (as n−1/3 at high concentrations) as observed in
n-PbTe (Figure 2). The weighted mobility, as defined here, is
a constant for a Drude–Sommerfeld metal and so would not
depend on n. The weighted mobility can be thought of as a
non-degenerate (low n) value for mobility which should not
change for samples with different doping and therefore better
for analyzing small changes in band structures with alloying.[29]
In addition, the exact, free electron, acoustic phonon scat-
tering result would require an additional term (the Hall factor
rH). Since this rH is only a function of the reduced Fermi level
(η) it could, in principle, be measured from the Seebeck coef-
ficient (much like the Lorenz factor[30]). However, because the
non-degenerate rH differs only by 18%,[5] it is preferable not to
Adv. Mater. 2020, 32, 2001537 2001537 (4 of 5)
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require an additional measurement, instead simply realizing
that variations of nH or μH less than 20% can be expected even
within a parabolic band system. If such differences in nH or μH
are worthy of discussion, the Hall factor should be calculated
more precisely for the material in question using accurate band
structures and scattering rates.
Both the measured weighted mobility and the Hall mobility
tend to be small in compensated materials with both n-type
and p-type charge carriers; smaller in comparison to that of
the dominant charge carrier alone. While the conductivities
of both charge carriers are positive and add together, both the
Hall voltage and Seebeck coefficient will reduce in magnitude
as they depend on the sign of the charge carriers.[27] As a result
a bipolar or composite sample (sample with compensating
phases or grain boundaries) has a smaller Hall voltage and ther-
mopower (|S|), and therefore the doping level appears higher
than one would expect for either charge carrier. This results in
a rapid decrease in μw and μH with increasing temperature as
charge carriers are excited across the band gap. The fact that
Hall voltage is weighted by the square of the partial conductivi-
ties compared to the linear weighting of Seebeck (Supporting
Information) may make μH more sensitive to unusual bipolar
behavior than μw.
Weighted mobility as defined here is an experimental mate-
rial parameter that can easily be computed from the measured
values of the Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity,
which needs no additional assumptions. Weighted mobility
can be used like the Hall mobility to characterize drift mobility,
the most basic material parameter in transport theory. The
weighted mobility is actually a better descriptor of the inherent
transport property than Hall mobility because it is more inde-
pendent of charge carrier concentration and magnetic impuri-
ties and has a more consistent temperature dependence (above
about 100 K). The weighted mobility is easy to measure with
commercial instruments and is orders of magnitude more sen-
sitive than the Hall effect for low mobility materials. In ther-
moelectric materials, the weighted mobility is the quantitative
measure of how good a material's electronic transport proper-
ties are for thermoelectric applications by characterizing the
S2σ term in zT.[1] Without the need of a high strength magnet
to measure the Hall coefficient, the weighted mobility offers
insight into a most basic material property with a relatively easy
Seebeck measurement.
Supporting Information
Supporting Information is available from the Wiley Online Library or
from the author.
Acknowledgements
G.J.S. and R.G. acknowledge NSF DMREF award# 1729487 and DOE Award
DE-AC02-76SF00515. C.N. acknowledges DOE SBIR award DE-SC0019679.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
© 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
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Author Contributions
G.J.S. conceived the idea in discussions with M.W., A.S. fit the parameters
in Equation (1). A.S., R.G., and C.N. downloaded and processed the
data. B.H.S. drew figures in Figure 3 and retrieved the missing Hall data
from the original source. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
Keywords
electrical transport, electrical measurements, mobility, organic
semiconductors, photovoltaics, semiconductors, thermoelectrics
Received: March 3, 2020
Revised: April 5, 2020
Published online: May 14, 2020
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