Intrinsic Contribution to Non-linear Thermoelectric Effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-linear thermoelectric effects in non-centrosymmetric materials under electric and thermal fields, deriving a formalism and testing it on topological insulators to reveal how warping and surface gaps influence these effects.

Contribution

It introduces a new formalism to analyze non-linear thermoelectric effects and applies it to topological insulators, revealing how warping and surface gaps affect these phenomena.

Findings

Non-linear Seebeck and Peltier effects depend on the ratio of non-linear to linear conductivities.

Enhancement of longitudinal and Hall effects with increased warping strength.

Opposite behavior of effects with increasing surface gap.

Abstract

Irradiation of the strong light on the material leads to numerous non-linear effects that are essential to understand the physics of excited states of the system and for optoelectronics. Here, we study the non-linear thermoelectric effect due to the electric and thermal fields applied on a non-centrosymmetric system. The phenomenon arises on the Fermi surface with the transitions of electrons from valence to conduction bands. We derive the formlism to investigate these effects and find that the non-linearity in these effects namely non-linear Seebeck and non-linear Peltier effects depends on the ratio of the non-linear to the linear conductivities. The theory is tested for a hexagonally warped and gapped topological insulator. Results show enhancement in the longitudinal and Hall effects on increasing the warping strength while show opposite behavior with the surface gap.