Colossal phonon drag enhanced thermopower in lightly doped diamond
- Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (United States)
- Catalan Inst. of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Barcelona (Spain)
Diamond is one of the most studied materials because of its unique combination of remarkable electrical, mechanical, thermal and optical properties. Using a fully self-consistent ab initio theory of coupled electron-phonon transport, we reveal another striking behavior: a huge drag enhancement of the thermopower of lightly doped diamond. Thermopower values of around 100,000 μV K–1 are found at 100 K, significantly exceeding the highest previously measured value in the correlated metal FeSb2, and occurring at much higher temperatures. The enormous thermopower in diamond arises primarily from exceptionally weak anharmonic phonon decay around and below 100 K that facilitates efficient momentum exchange between charge carriers and phonons through electron-phonon interactions. Exceedingly large thermoelectric power factors are also identified. Furthermore, this work gives insights into the physics of the coupled electron-phonon system in solids and advances our understanding of thermoelectric transport in the regime of strong drag.
- Research Organization:
- Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0021071
- OSTI ID:
- 1876375
- Journal Information:
- Materials Today Physics, Vol. 27; ISSN 2542-5293
- Publisher:
- ElsevierCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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