Prototypical many-body signatures in transport properties of semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theory for charge, heat, and entropy transport in semiconductors, accounting for finite carrier lifetimes and reproducing experimental temperature profiles with minimal input.

Contribution

It introduces a new phenomenological framework that links scattering rates to transport features, explaining previously elusive low-temperature behaviors in correlated narrow-gap semiconductors.

Findings

Reproduces temperature-dependent transport profiles with minimal electronic structure input.

Accounts for low-temperature resistivity and Hall coefficient saturation.

Explains the linear vanishing of Seebeck and Nernst coefficients in specific semiconductors.

Abstract

We devise a methodology for charge, heat, and entropy transport driven by carriers with finite lifetimes. Combining numerical simulations with analytical expressions for low temperatures, we establish a comprehensive and thermodynamically consistent phenomenology for transport properties in semiconductors. We demonstrate that the scattering rate (inverse lifetime) is a relevant energy scale: It causes the emergence of several characteristic features in each transport observable. The theory is capable to reproduce -- with only a minimal input electronic structure -- the full temperature profiles measured in correlated narrow-gap semiconductors. In particular, we account for the previously elusive low-$T$ saturation of the resistivity and the Hall coefficient, as well as the (linear) vanishing of the Seebeck and Nernst coefficient in systems, such as FeSb$_2$, FeAs$_2$, RuSb$_2$ and FeGa$_3$.