The large Nernst effect is advantageous for developing transverse Nernst thermoelectric generators or Ettingshausen coolers within a single component, avoiding the complexity of electron- and hole-modules in longitudinal Seebeck thermoelectric devices. We report a large Nernst signal reaching 130 uV/K at 8 K and 13 T in the layered metallic antiferromagnet EuAl2Si2. Notably, this large transverse Nernst thermopower is two orders of magnitude greater than its longitudinal counterpart. The Nernst coefficient peaks around 4 K and 8 K at 3 T and 13 T, respectively. At similar temperatures, both the Hall coefficient and the Seebeck signal change sign. Additionally, nearly compensated electron- and hole-like carriers with high mobility (∼ 4000 cm2/Vs at 4 K) are revealed from the magnetoconductivity. These findings suggest that the large Nernst effect and vanishing Seebeck thermopower in EuAl2Si2 are due to the compensated electron- and hole-like bands, along with the high mobility of the Weyl band near the Fermi level. Our results underscore the importance of band compensation and topological fermiology in achieving large Nernst thermopower and exploring potential Nernst thermoelectric applications at low temperatures.
@article{arxiv.2407.18460,
title = {Large Nernst Effect in a layered metallic antiferromagnet EuAl$_2$Si$_2$},
author = {Kunya Yang and Wei Xia and Xinrun Mi and Yiyue zhang and Long zhang and Aifeng Wang and Yisheng Chai and Xiaoyuan Zhou and Yanfeng Guo and Mingquan He},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.18460},
year = {2024}
}