Quantized Thermoelectric Hall Effect Induces Giant Power Factor in a Topological Semimetal

Abstract

Thermoelectrics are promising by directly generating electricity from waste heat. However, (sub-)room-temperature thermoelectrics have been a long-standing challenge due to vanishing electronic entropy at low temperatures. Topological materials offer a new avenue for energy harvesting applications. Recent theories predicted that topological semimetals at the quantum limit can lead to a large, non-saturating thermopower and a quantized thermoelectric Hall conductivity approaching a universal value. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the non-saturating thermopower and quantized thermoelectric Hall effect in the topological Weyl semimetal (WSM) tantalum phosphide (TaP). An ultrahigh longitudinal thermopower Sxx= 1.1x10^3 muV/K and giant power factor ~525 muW/cm/K^2 are observed at ~40K, which is largely attributed to the quantized thermoelectric Hall effect. Our work highlights the unique quantized thermoelectric Hall effect realized in a WSM toward low-temperature energy harvesting applications.

arXiv comment54 pages total, 5 main figures + 22 supplementary figures. To appear in Nature Communications (2020)

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• Anomalous Phonon-mode Dependence in Polarized Raman Spectroscopy of Topological Weyl Semimetal TaP
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• Quantized thermoelectric Hall plateau in the quantum limit of graphite as a nodal line semimetal
• Nernst power factor and figure of merit in compensated semimetal ScSb
• Thermo-magneto-electric transport through a torsion dislocation in a type I Weyl Semimetal
• Large Transverse Thermoelectric Effect in Weyl Semimetal TaIrTe${}_4$ Engineered for Photodetection
• Design Principles for Topological Thermoelectrics
• Near-Equilibrium Approach to Transport in Complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Models
• Thermoelectric Hall Effect at High-Magnetic-Field Quantum Limit in Graphite as a Nodal-Line Semimetal
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