Observation of room temperature intrinsic nonlinear thermoelectric effects in low-dimensional semimetals

Abstract:Nonreciprocal control of thermoelectric responses offers a promising strategy for next-generation thermal-management and energy-conversion. While nonlinear electrical transport has recently emerged as an intrinsic property of low-symmetry quantum materials, their thermoelectric counterparts have not been demonstrated. Here, exploiting harmonic detection with gradient-reversal techniques, we report intrinsic nonlinear thermoelectric responses up to room temperature in the low-symmetry type-II Weyl semimetals $T_\mathrm{d}$-WTe$_2$ and TaIrTe$_4$ in the absence of magnetic fields or magnetic materials. We resolve all symmetry-allowed components of the second-order thermoelectric tensor, including the nonlinear Seebeck, nonlinear Nernst, and nonlinear mixed-directional thermoelectric effects and demonstrate that both Berry-curvature-related and scattering-induced contributions govern the different nonlinear thermoelectric responses. Our results show that nonlinear thermoelectricity arises intrinsically from reduced crystal symmetry and that engineering effects related to scattering in these materials provides a versatile platform for exploring higher-order heat-to-charge current conversion beyond the linear response.

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

arXiv:2607.21808 [cond-mat.mes-hall]

(or arXiv:2607.21808v1 [cond-mat.mes-hall] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.21808 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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