The effect of native defects originated by a non-stoichiometric variation of composition in CoSb₃ on I-V curves and Hall effect was investigated. Hysteretic and a non-linear behavior of the I-V curves at cryogenic temperatures were observed; the non-linear behavior originated from the Poole-Frenkel effect, a field-dependent ionization mechanism that lowers Coulomb barriers and increases emission of charge carriers, and the hysteresis was attributed to the drastic decrease of specific heat which produces Joule heating at cryogenic temperatures. CoSb₃ is a narrow gap semiconductor and slight variation in the synthesis process can lead to either n- or p-type conduction. The Sb-deficient CoSb₃ presented an n-type conduction. Using a single parabolic model and assuming only acoustic-phonon scattering the charge transport properties were calculated at 300 K. From this model, a carrier concentration of 1.18 × 1018 cm-3 and a Hall factor of 1.18 were calculated. The low mobility of charge carriers, 19.11 cm²/V·s, and the high effective mass of the electrons, 0.66 m₀, caused a high resistivity value of 2.75 × 10-3 Ω·m. The calculated Lorenz factor was 1.50 × 10-8 V²/K², which represents a decrease of 38% over the degenerate limit value (2.44 × 10-8 V²/K²).
Keywords: electrical transport; low temperature; native defects; skutterudites; thermoelectrics.