Published March 1, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article

Anomalous thermal effect in ZrTe5 observed via photothermal measurements

  • 1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA
  • 2. Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, New York 11973, USA
  • 3. Nordita, Stockholm University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
  • 4. Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800, USA
  • 5. Department of Physics, Brook Haven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA
  • 6. RIKEN-BNL Research Center, Brook Haven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973-5000, USA
  • 7. National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, USA

Description

In this study, we explore the magnetothermoelectric power (MTP) of ZrTe5, a canonical Dirac semimetal, through a photothermal technique. Unlike conventional thermoelectric studies that rely on on-chip heaters and are limited by fabrication processes, especially for stress-sensitive materials, our approach utilizes photothermal effects to induce temperature gradients. Our experiments, applying a magnetic field approximately parallel and transverse to the photocurrent detection direction, reveal that the photothermal method efficiently and reliably extracts both diagonal and off-diagonal components of the thermoelectric coefficient of ZrTe5. We observe that the longitudinal MTP reproduces features previously reported in thermal transport studies, while the photoinduced transverse MTP confirms the anomalous Nernst effect. This photothermal measurement technique opens avenues for investigating transport properties in a wide range of quantum materials, in both three-dimensional and two-dimensional systems.

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevApplied.21.034001;
Crossref Funder ID
10.13039/100013055; 10.13039/501100008982; 10.13039/100000001; 10.13039/501100004785;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review Applied
Journal Volume
21
Journal Issue
3
Journal Page Range
7 pgs.
ISSN
2331-7019

Optional Information

Copyright
© 2024 American Physical Society
Contract/Grant/Project number
DE-SC0012704; DMR-1808491
Notes
Contact Email: makoto.tsuneto@stonybrook.edu; Contact Email: mengkun.liu@stonybrook.edu; Record automatically processed
Funding organization
Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering; National Science Foundation; NSF; NordForsk; Center for Functional Nanomaterials