Abstract Scope |
While conventional thermoelectric materials have been widely studied for waste-heat recovery and use in niche applications, their commercial efficiency has not increased in recent years. Here, magnetism is used to not only enhance thermal-to-electrical energy conversion, but it is also used to decouple the direction of the applied heat flux from the resultant electric field, offering an engineering design degree of freedom. In this talk, this magneto-thermoelectric transport will be explored in conjunction with topological band structures, which offer unique transport signatures in topological materials such as Weyl semimetals. Through comparison between different types of Weyl semimetals, transport results arising from magneto-thermoelectric effects, and transport in thin film vs. polycrystalline vs. single-crystalline samples, this talk will discuss which aspects of this topological class of materials are most promising for future use in thermoelectric devices. |