Rashba-driven anomalous Nernst conductivity of lead chalcogenide films

Abstract

The presence of a finite Berry curvature $\left(\Omega \left(k\right)\right)$ leads to anomalous thermal effects. In this letter, we compute the coefficients for the anomalous Nernst effect $\left(ANE\right)$ and its spin analogue, the spin Nernst effect $\left(SNE\right)$ in lead chalcogenide (\textit{PbX}; \textit{X} = S, Se, Te) films. The narrow gapped \textit{PbX} films with a large spin-orbit coupling (\textit{soc}) offer a significant Rashba interaction that gives rise to $\Omega \left(k\right)$ and the attendant anomalous thermal behaviour. In presence of a temperature gradient, the $ANE$ and $SNE$ establish a thermal and spin current and are characterized by their respective coefficients which acquire higher values for a stronger Rashba interaction. We further show that an extrinsic \textit{soc} generated by an in-plane electric field offers a gate-like mechanism to control (and turn-off) the anomalous thermal currents. Finally, we conclude by deriving the efficiency of an $ANE$-driven low-temperature Carnot heat engine and demonstrate that it can be gainfully optimized in systems with a robust intrinsic \textit{soc} resulting in low carrier effective masses.

4 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Inverse Spin Hall Effect Induced by Asymmetric Illumination of Light on Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$