Lead telluride: bulk and surface thermal transport at low temperature

• Grant number: 21/00322-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2021
• End date: September 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Condensed Matter Physics
• Principal Investigator: Valentina Martelli
• Grantee: Eduardo Thomaz Noronha
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 18/19420-3 - Thermoelectricity and heat transport in topological materials, AP.JP

Abstract

In this project, we propose an investigation of the thermal transport in single crystals of lead telluride (PbTe). Recently, PbTe has attracted great attention due to its thermoelectric performance when it is appropriately doped; however, tin telluride (SnTe) has gained importance as a greener alternative to it.The interest in the physical properties of these two materials has increased since SnTe has been classified as a material with nontrivial electronic topology, and PbTe as its counterpart with trivial topology in the electronic bands. Studying the thermal properties of PbTe is a first step to conduct a comparative analysis with bulk and thin-film samples of SnTe. This scientific initiation project is focused on the study of the low temperature behavior of PbTe (bulk and surface), which includes the development of an ad-hoc, experimental platform and of a dedicated software for automating the experiments and managing data.This scientific initiation project is part of the project JP-FAPESP (2018-19420-3), whose general goal is to study the effects of electronic topology on thermal transport phenomena.