Colossal Seebeck effect enhanced by quasi-ballistic phonons dragging massive electrons in FeSb2.
Phonon transport is an essential property of thermoelectric materials. Although the phonon carries heat, which reduces the thermoelectric efficiency, it contributes positively to the Seebeck coefficient S through the phonon-drag effect, as typified by the high-purity semiconductors, which show fairly large S at cryogenic temperatures. Although such a large S is attractive in terms of Peltier cooling, a clear guiding principle for designing thermoelectric materials enriched by the phonon-drag effect remains to be established. Here we demonstrate that a correlated semiconductor, FeSb2, is a promising thermoelectric material featuring quasi-ballistic phonons dragging d electrons with large effective mass. By changing the sample size within the sub-millimetre order for high-purity single crystals, we succeed in substantially increasing S to as much as -27 mV K(-1) at low temperatures. Our results exemplify a strategy for exploring phonon-drag-based thermoelectric materials, the performance of which can be maximized by combining heavy electrons with ballistic phonons.
Department of Applied Physics, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.|Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
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H
Takahashi
Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.|Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Noda 278-8510, Japan.
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R
Okazaki
Department of Applied Physics, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.|PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.
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Ishiwata
Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
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H
Taniguchi
Center for Advanced High Magnetic Field Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan.
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Okutani
Center for Advanced High Magnetic Field Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan.
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Hagiwara
Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan.
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Terasaki