Energy and Concentration Nonequilibriums in the Theory of Thermoelectric Processes

It is shown that the transports of heat and electricity in bipolar semiconductors are interdependent and self-consistent. Usually, the temperature is not a linear function of the coordinate, and in particular, not constant in a bipolar semiconductor in a stationary nonequilibrium state even in a linear approximation with respect to a perturbation. The correlation between the energy and concentration nonequilibriums is established: the recombination is proportional to the second derivative of the temperature with respect to the coordinate. Therefore, when studying thermoelectric phenomena, one must take into account that the temperature is not equal to an equilibrium value, and is not a linear function of the coordinate even in a linear approximation.