Anomalous thermoelectric effects of ZrTe$_{5}$ in and beyond the quantum limit

Abstract

Thermoelectric effects are more sensitive and promising probes to topological properties of emergent materials, but much less addressed compared to other physical properties. Zirconium pentatelluride (ZrTe$_{5}$) has inspired active investigations recently because of its multiple topological nature. We study the thermoelectric effects of ZrTe$_{5}$ in a magnetic field and find several anomalous behaviors. The Nernst response has a steplike profile near zero field when the charge carriers are electrons only, suggesting the anomalous Nernst effect arising from a nontrivial profile of Berry curvature. Both the thermopower and Nernst signal exhibit exotic peaks in the strong-field quantum limit. At higher magnetic fields, the Nernst signal has a sign reversal at a critical field where the thermopower approaches to zero. We propose that these anomalous behaviors can be attributed to the Landau index inversion, which is resulted from the competition of the $\sqrt{B}$ dependence of the Dirac-type Landau bands and linear-$B$ dependence of the Zeeman energy ($B$ is the magnetic field). Our understanding to the anomalous thermoelectric properties in ZrTe$_{5}$ opens a new avenue for exploring Dirac physics in topological materials.