Tuning thermoelectric power factor by crystal-field and spin-orbit couplings in Kondo lattice materials

Abstract

We study thermoelectric transport at low temperatures in correlated Kondo insulators, motivated by the recent observation of a high thermoelectric figure of merit(ZT) in $FeS{b}_2$ at $T\sim 10K$. Even at room temperature, correlations have the potential to lead to high ZT, as in $YbA{l}_3$, one of the most widely used thermoelectric metals. At low temperature correlation effects are especially worthy of study because fixed band structures are unlikely to give rise to the very small energy gaps $E_g\sim 5kT$ necessary for a weakly correlated material to function efficiently at low temperature. We explore the possibility of improving the thermoelectric properties of correlated Kondo insulators through tuning of crystal field and spin-orbit coupling and present a framework to design more efficient low-temperature thermoelectrics based on our results.

8 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (4)

• BoltzTraP. A code for calculating band-structure dependent quantities
• Thermopower of correlated semiconductors : application to FeAs2 and FeSb2
• Kondo effect in the presence of spin-orbit coupling
• Angle dependent quasiparticle weights in correlated metals

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Double quantum dot as a minimal thermoelectric generator
• Thermoelectric response of a correlated impurity in the nonequilibrium Kondo regime
• Thermal conductivity of the one-dimensional Fermi-Hubbard model
• The thermoelectric working fluid: thermodynamics and transport
• Multi-orbital Effects on Thermoelectric Properties of Strongly Correlated Materials
• Surface Conductivity in Antiferromagnetic Semiconductor CrSb${}_2$
• The thermoelectric conversion efficiency problem: Insights from the electron gas thermodynamics close to a phase transition