Anomalous thermal transport and violation of Wiedemann-Franz law in the critical regime of a charge density wave transition

Abstract

ErTe${}_3$ is studied as a model system to explore thermal transport in a layered charge density wave (CDW) material. We present data from thermal diffusivity, resistivity, and specific heat measurements: There is a sharp decrease in thermal conductivity both parallel and perpendicular to the primary CDW at the CDW transition temperature. At the same time, the resistivity changes more gradually. Correspondingly, while well above and below $T_c$, a consistent description of the thermal transport applies with essentially independent electron and phonon contributions (estimated using the Wiedemann Franz law), in the critical regime no such description is possible; the observed behavior corresponds to a strongly coupled electron-phonon critical `soup.'

Main text 7 pages and 7 figures, supplementary text 2 pages and 2 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Suppression of charge density wave order by disorder in Pd-intercalated ErTe${}_3$
• Evidence of phonon-charge-density-waves coupling in ErTe${}_3$
• Robust superconductivity intertwined with charge density wave and disorder in Pd-intercalated ErTe${}_3$
• Effect of Chemical Pressure on the Charge Density Wave Transition in Rare-earth Tritellurides RTe_3
• Sample Shape and Boundary Dependence of Measured Transverse Thermal Properties

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Anomalous thermal Hall effect and anomalous Nernst effect of CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$