Highly Dispersive Electron Relaxation and Colossal Thermoelectricity in the Correlated Semiconductor FeSb${}_2$

Abstract

We show that the colossal thermoelectric power, $S(T)$, observed in the correlated semiconductor FeSb${}_2$ below 30\,K is accompanied by a huge Nernst coefficient $\nu (T)$ and magnetoresistance MR$(T)$. Markedly, the latter two quantities are enhanced in a strikingly similar manner. While in the same temperature range, $S(T)$ of the reference compound FeAs${}_2$, which has a seven-times larger energy gap, amounts to nearly half of that of FeSb${}_2$, its $\nu (T)$ and MR$(T)$ are intrinsically different to FeSb${}_2$: they are smaller by two orders of magnitude and have no common features. With the charge transport of FeAs${}_2$ successfully captured by the density functional theory, we emphasize a significantly dispersive electron-relaxation time $\tau ({\epsilon }_k)$ due to electron-electron correlations to be at the heart of the peculiar thermoelectricity and magnetoresistance of FeSb${}_2$.

8 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Unified picture for the colossal thermopower compound FeSb${}_2$
• Vacancy defect control of colossal thermopower in FeSb2
• Unusual electronic and vibrational properties in the colossal thermopower material FeSb${}_2$
• Low-Temperature Thermopower in CoSbS
• Resistivity saturation in Kondo insulators
• Resonant Charge Relaxation as a Likely Source of the Enhanced Thermopower in FeSi
• Study for material analogs of FeSb${}_2$: material design for thermoelectric materials
• Enhancement of the thermoelectric power by electronic correlations in bad metals: a study of the Kelvin formula
• LinReTraCe: The Linear Response Transport Centre
• A thermomagnetic mechanism for self-cooling cables
• Prototypical many-body signatures in transport properties of semiconductors
• Origin of anomalous temperature dependence of Nernst effect in narrow-gap semiconductors