Wiedemann-Franz violation and thermal Hall effect in kagome metal TbCr6Ge6

TL;DR

This study investigates the breakdown of the Wiedemann-Franz law and the thermal Hall effect in the kagome metal TbCr6Ge6, revealing charge-neutral excitations and complex thermal transport behavior influenced by ferrimagnetism.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed examination of Wiedemann-Franz law violation and thermal Hall effect in a kagome metal, highlighting the role of charge-neutral excitations and magnetic order.

Findings

Strong deviation from Wiedemann-Franz law across the ferrimagnetic transition

Observation of a sign-changing transverse Lorenz ratio at low temperatures

Decoupling of heat and charge transport indicating charge-neutral excitations

Abstract

The thermal Hall effect has emerged as a powerful probe of exotic excitations in correlated quantum materials, providing access to charge-neutral heat carriers that remain invisible to electrical transport. To directly examine how heat and charge respond in relation within a kagome metal, we investigate the ferrimagnetic rare-earth 1-6-6 compound TbCr6Ge6 using the Wiedemann-Franz (WF) framework. We observe a dramatic breakdown of the WF law across the ferrimagnetic transition, where both longitudinal and transverse Lorenz ratios, L_{xx,xy} = \kappa_{xx,xy} / (T \sigma_{xx,xy}), deviate strongly from the Sommerfeld value L_0. After a partial recovery toward L_0 near 5-7 K, the Lorenz ratios are sharply suppressed well below L_0 despite a metallic charge response. We further find a pronounced low-temperature suppression of both L_{xx} and L_{xy} and a sign-changing transverse Lorenz ratio, indicating a clear decoupling between heat and charge transport and signaling substantial contributions from charge-neutral excitations whose Berry-curvature-driven transverse response evolves with temperature and magnetic field. TbCr6Ge6 thus provides a tunable metallic platform in which exchange-driven ferrimagnetism governs both longitudinal and transverse thermal responses, enabling controlled departures from Wiedemann-Franz behavior over an experimentally accessible temperature and field range.