Emergent topological fields and relativistic phonons within the thermoelectricity in topological insulators

TL;DR

This paper explores how emergent topological fields and relativistic phonons influence thermoelectric properties in topological insulators, revealing new mechanisms that could enhance their efficiency at high temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework combining electrodynamics and topology to treat relativistic phonons and their impact on thermoelectric effects in topological insulators.

Findings

Relativistic phonons modulate the Berry curvature of bands.

Topological insulators maintain time reversal symmetry under relativistic thermal excitations.

High figures of merit are achievable at elevated temperatures.

Abstract

Topological edge states are predicted to be responsible for the high efficient thermoelectric response of topological insulators, currently the best thermoelectric materials. However, to explain their figure of merit the coexistence of topological electrons, entropy and phonons can not be considered independently. In a background that puts together electrodynamics and topology, through an expression for the topological intrinsic field, we treat relativistic phonons within the topological surface showing their ability to modulate the Berry curvature of the bands and then playing a fundamental role in the thermoelectric effect. Finally, we show how the topological insulators under such relativistic thermal excitations keep time reversal symmetry allowing the observation of high figures of merit at high temperatures. The emergence of this new intrinsic topological field and other constraints are suitable to have experimental consequences opening new possibilities of improving the efficiency of this topological effect for their based technology.