Zero-Field Thermal Hall Effect in Insulator
摘要
Fourier's law dictates that heat flow is usually parallel to the applied temperature gradient. However, under a high magnetic field, heat flow carried by both electrons in conductors and phonons in insulators can be deflected, a phenomenon known as thermal Hall effect. Intriguingly, we observe at zero field a spontaneous thermal Hall effect in an antiferromagnetic insulator. Despite a vanishingly small uncompensated magnetization, the magnitude of this effect is surprisingly large, comparable to typical responses induced by several teslas of external field. This zero-field behavior indicates that charge-neutral heat carriers can be governed by an intrinsic effective field arising from the unique spin arrangement. Our discovery challenges the centuries-old preconception of heat conduction and open up new avenues for exploring non-trivial topological responses in quantum materials.
引用
@article{arxiv.2605.28249,
title = {Zero-Field Thermal Hall Effect in Insulator},
author = {Zhe Cui and Haoran Fan and Wenjiang Zhou and Xianghong Jin and Yuchen Gu and Da Ma and Cong Xiao and Hua Jiang and Xincheng Xie and Bai Song and Yuan Li and Xi Lin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.28249},
year = {2026}
}