Largely Suppressed Magneto-Thermal Conductivity and Enhanced Magneto-Thermoelectric Properties in PtSn4
Chenguang Fu,
Satya N. Guin,
Thomas Scaffidi,
Yan Sun,
Rana Saha,
Sarah J. Watzman,
Abhay K. Srivastava,
Guowei Li,
Walter Schnelle,
Stuart S. P. Parkin,
Claudia Felser,
Johannes Gooth
Affiliations
Chenguang Fu
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Satya N. Guin
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Thomas Scaffidi
Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada
Yan Sun
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Rana Saha
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany
Sarah J. Watzman
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45219, USA
Abhay K. Srivastava
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany; Institute of Physics, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle, Germany
Guowei Li
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Walter Schnelle
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Stuart S. P. Parkin
Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, 06120 Halle, Germany
Claudia Felser
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Johannes Gooth
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, 01187 Dresden, Germany
Highly conductive topological semimetals with exotic electronic structures offer fertile ground for the investigation of the electrical and thermal transport behavior of quasiparticles. Here, we find that the layer-structured Dirac semimetal PtSn4 exhibits a largely suppressed thermal conductivity under a magnetic field. At low temperatures, a dramatic decrease in the thermal conductivity of PtSn4 by more than two orders of magnitude is obtained at 9 T. Moreover, PtSn4 shows both strong longitudinal and transverse thermoelectric responses under a magnetic field. Large power factor and Nernst power factor of approximately 80–100 μW·cm-1·K-2 are obtained around 15 K in various magnetic fields. As a result, the thermoelectric figure of merit zT is strongly enhanced by more than 30 times, compared to that without a magnetic field. This work provides a paradigm for the decoupling of the electron and hole transport behavior of highly conductive topological semimetals and is helpful for developing topological semimetals for thermoelectric energy conversion.
