Topological thermoelectric effects in spin-orbit coupled electron- and hole-doped semiconductors

E. Dumitrescu, Chuanwei Zhang, D. C. Marinescu, Sumanta Tewari

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8 Scopus citations

Abstract

We compute the intrinsic contributions to the Berry-phase mediated anomalous Hall and Nernst effects in electron- and hole-doped semiconductors in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field as well as Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. For both systems we find that the regime of chemical potential which supports the topological superconducting state in the presence of the superconducting proximity effect can be characterized by plateaus in the topological Hall and Nernst coefficients flanked by well-defined peaks marking the emergence of the topological regime. The plateaus arise from a clear momentum space separation between the region where the Berry curvature is peaked (at the "near-band-degeneracy" points) and the region where the single (or odd number of) Fermi surface lies in the Brillouin zone. The plateau for the Nernst coefficient is at vanishing magnitudes surrounded by two large peaks of opposite signs as a function of the chemical potential. These results could be useful for experimentally deducing the chemical potential regime suitable for realizing topological states in the presence of the proximity effect.

Original languageEnglish
Article number245301
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume85
Issue number24
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1 2012
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation
Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences1104546, 1104527

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