Effect of pressure on the transport properties and thermoelectric performance of Dirac semimetal ZrTe5

Abstract

In this study, we have investigated and compared the effect of hydrostatic pressure up to ~20 kbar on the transport properties of ZrTe5 single crystals grown by chemical vapor transport (CVT) and flux methods. With the application of pressure, the electrical resistivity Rho(T) and thermopower S(T) of both crystals were found to increase in the whole temperature range unlike the other known thermoelectric materials, such as Bi2Te3, SnSe etc. This observation is supported by the complementary first-principles band structure calculation as the application of pressure widens the direct bandgap at Γ point. Moreover, the analysis of the pressure dependent magneto-transport and Shubnikov de-Hass oscillation results revealed an increase in carrier concentration and effective mass along with the reduction of mobility as pressure rises. Furthermore, with the application of pressure, the flux-grown ZrTe5 crystals display a transition from unipolar to bipolar charge transport as evidenced by the emergence of resistivity peak at T* under high pressure, unlike the CVT-grown ZrTe5 crystals where the bipolar charge transport near its characteristic resistivity peak (Tp) remains unaffected.

14 pages, 11 Figures, For submission in Physical Review B

References in corpus (14)

• Advanced capabilities for materials modelling with Quantum ESPRESSO
• Two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a topological insulator: transport in the quantum limit
• Topological origin of subgap conductance in insulating bilayer graphene
• Pressure induced Superconductivity in Topological Compound Bi2Te3
• Evidence for a Strong Topological Insulator Phase in $\mathrm{ZrT}{\mathrm{e}}_5$
• Large Seebeck Effect by Charge-Mobility Engineering
• Lifshitz transition mediated electronic transport anomaly in bulk ZrTe5
• Gigantic magnetochiral anisotropy in the topological semimetal ZrTe5
• Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations from topological surface states of metallic Bi${}_2$Se${}_{2.1}$Te${}_{0.9}$
• Two-carrier analyses of the transport properties of black phosphorus under pressure
• Band Structure Driven Thermoelectric Response of Topological Semiconductor ZrTe${}_5$
• Probing intraband excitations in ZrTe${}_5$: a high-pressure infrared and transport study
• Signature of pressure-induced topological phase transition in ZrTe${}_5$
• Importance of the semimetallic state for the quantum Hall effect in HfTe${}_5$