Electronic Correlations and Thermoelectric Performance of FeSb2

Cedomir Petrovic
Condensed Matter Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Heavy fermion semiconductors have been attracting considerable interest in the past several decades whereas new materials have been the driving force in the field [1-4]. One of the main points of interest has been the mechanism of the gap and its proximity to magnetic ground states, i.e. the possibility that semiconducting gap is driven by or related to magnetic interactions [5-7]. In this talk I will discuss heavy fermions and electronic correlations in FeSb2 [8,9,10], a correlated electron semiconductor similar to FeSi [11] that was found to host a record-high thermoelectric power factor (TPF) [12]. I will how even higher values of TPF can be obtained by subtle conducting states that emerge from synthesis-induced metal-insulator transition [13] and how high values of Seebeck coefficient can be rationalized within the electronic model of multiband thermoelectricity [14].

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