Holey topological thermoelectrics

Abstract

We study the thermoelectric properties of three-dimensional topological insulators with many holes (or pores) in the bulk. We show that at high density of these holes the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT can be large due to the contribution of the conducting surfaces and the suppressed phonon thermal conductivity. The maximum efficiency can be tuned by an induced gap in the surface states dispersion through tunneling or external magnetic fields. The large values of ZT, much higher than unity for reasonable parameters, make this system a strong candidate for applications in heat management of nanodevices, especially at low temperatures.

4+ pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• A topological Dirac insulator in a quantum spin Hall phase : Experimental observation of first strong topological insulator
• Topological origin of subgap conductance in insulating bilayer graphene
• Two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a topological insulator: transport in the quantum limit
• Thin topological insulator film in a perpendicular magnetic field
• Holey topological thermoelectrics

Cited by in corpus (18)

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• Giant thermoelectric effect in graphene-based topological insulators with nanopores
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• Ambipolar Surface State Thermoelectric Power of Topological Insulator Bi2Se3
• Holey topological thermoelectrics
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• Disentangling the magnetoelectric and thermoelectric transport in topological insulator thin films
• Thermoelectric transport through Majorana bound states and violation of Wiedemann-Franz law
• On Behind the Physics of the Thermoelectricity of Topological Insulators
• Nonlinear spin-thermoelectric transport in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Spin-dependent thermoelectric transport in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells
• Revealing Optical Transitions and Carrier Recombination Dynamics within the Bulk Band Structure of Bi2Se3
• Materials analysis and focused ion beam nanofabrication of topological insulator Bi2Se3
• Quantum Transport and Potential of Topological States for Thermoelectricity in Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ Thin Films
• Intrinsic Contribution to Non-linear Thermoelectric Effect
• Thermoelectric efficiency of topological insulators in a magnetic field
• Thermoelectric properties of an ultra-thin topological insulator
• Thermoelectric refrigerator based on asymmetric surfaces of a magnetic topological insulator