Thermoelectrics Near the Mott Localization-Delocalization Transition

TL;DR

This paper reviews the theoretical understanding of thermoelectric properties in correlated materials near the Mott transition, highlighting the role of strong correlations and dynamical mean field theory in predicting thermopower behavior.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical framework for thermoelectricity in correlated systems, emphasizing the differences from traditional approaches and the importance of non-universality due to correlations.

Findings

Low-temperature thermopower sign can differ from LDA predictions.

Strong correlations lead to significant non-universality in thermoelectric behavior.

Theoretical formulas are derived for different temperature regimes.

Abstract

We give an overview on current status of the theoretical research on Thermoelectricity for correlated materials. We derive the theoretical formulas which become exact at low and high temperature and discuss the intermediate temperature results. In particular, we show that within Dynamical Mean Field Theory the low temperature sign of the thermopower is not necessary the same as in LDA, and that significant non-universality is expected due to strong correlations.