The electrical resistances of ~-rhombohedraloand tetragonal polycrystalline boron were measured at temperatures from 25 to 300 Cand pressures from 1 atm to 60 kb (kilobars); the thermoelectric power was measured to 13 kb. Pressures were applied with an anvil press. With increasing temperature the resistance, R, continually decreased and the thermoelectric power, Q, at first increased and then levelled off. The shapes of the log R vs. 1/T and Q. vs. T curves are explained by intrinsic conduction at high temperatures going to extrinsic conduction at the lowest temperatures studied. In the intrinsic region an increase in pressure causes a reduction in the resistance, energy gap, and thermoelectric power of boron. For the low-temperature extrinsic region pressure lowers the resistance and hardly affects the thermoelectric power. These effects are discussed.The effects of pressure on the band gap have been studied for several elements such as the group IV semimetals, phosphorus, selenium, and iodine (1-3). Although quite a number of electrical measurements have been made on boron at atmospheric pressure, work at elevated pressures is sparse. Hamann (4) has reported the electrical resistance of a boron sample at room temperature and pressures up to 40 kb, and Vereshchagin et aI. (5) have measured the resistance of boron at room temperature from 25 to 250 kb. The crystal form of the boron in both of the above studies was unspecified, but both studies revealed a decrease in resistance with increasing pressure, as well as an absence of any phase transitions. Studies of boron are made difficult by the fact that it has several crystal modifications, the structures of which are all quite complex (6), and only one of which appears to be commercially available. Furthermore, the melting point of boron is very high (2300~ which makes purification of it difficult (especially since the forms other than ~-rhombohedral crystallize to fl-rhombohedral upon being melted and recrystallized) (6).In the present work the effects of pressure and temperature on the electrical resistance and thermoelectric power of three polycrystalline boron samples have been studied. The three materials studied were fl-rhombohedral and a tetragonal modification of boron, both prepared in this laboratory, and a commercially available ~-rhombohedral boron. Since the two types of crystals prepared here appeared to have similar impurity content, which was at least an order of magnitude lower than that of the commercial p-rhombohedral boron, the study was intended to serve also as a comparison of the importance of structural vs. purity differences on electrical properties of boron.
Preparation and Identification of BoronBeing unable to purchase tetragonal boron, we prepared it, as well as some p-rhombohedral boron, using the hot filament technique (7) in which BBr8 was reduced by H2 on a glowing Ta filament. The conditions of preparation (8) were identical for the two modifications except for the filament temperature which measured 1250~ in the case of the tetra...