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In the Peltier effect, we consider charge carriers being able to carry heat. As for electrons or ions, this attitude makes sense, since external electric potential drives particles with mass in a direction and effectively transfers heat from one point of material to another.

But for holes, this situation is only virtual, holes moving in a direction is only reformulation of the fact that the electron making up the hole environment are traveling opposite direction. I just cannot grasp the concept that the holes can indeed carry heat.

I know one can argue that the holes have effective mass, but effective mass is only a measure of how much can you accelerate / decelerate the electron (or hole) in a crystal field.

Can you help me out please?

Jan Hirschner
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Both free electrons and holes in semiconductor are excitations, i.e. quasiparticles which can propagate under influence of external electric field or temperature due to diffusion or drift. Don't forget that electrons are also characterized by the effective mass. In p-doped semiconductors a gradient of the temperature creates a region where hoping of real electrons between sites of the crystal lattice are more intensive than in other part of the device. Due to diffusion they tend to spread over all volume.

freude
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