Temperature dependence of resistivity and temperature coefficient of a single-crystal bismuth nanowire based on the varying scattering mechanism

Temperature dependence of resistivity and temperature coefficient of a single-crystal bismuth nanowire was investigated considering the scattering mechanism for each Fermi pocket of the carrier using relaxation time approximation based on the Boltzmann equation. The scattering mechanism of each bismuth carrier was determined according to the relationship between the mean free path of bulk bismuth and nanowire (diameter: 595 and 345 nm). The calculation and experimental results revealed the dominant contribution of the bulk segment in the room-temperature region, influencing the scattering mechanism, whereas the dominant contribution of the wire segment was observed in the lower-temperature region owing to the substantially larger mean free path of the carrier than the wire diameter. Moreover, the temperature coefficient in the lower-temperature region was determined by the effective masses parallel and perpendicular to the wire length, verifying the unique behavior of the temperature dependence of bismuth nanowires with three-dimensional density of state.