Observation of nonlinear thermoelectric effect in MoGe/Y3Fe5O12

Thermoelectric effects refer to the voltage generation from temperature gradients in condensed matter. Although various power generators are made from them, all the known effects, such as Seebeck effect, require macroscopic temperature gradients; since the sign of the generated voltage is reversed by reversing the temperature gradient, the net voltage disappears when the temperature distribution fluctuates temporarily or spatially with a macroscopic temperature gradient of zero. It is impossible to utilize such temperature fluctuations in the conventional thermoelectric effects, a situation which limits their application. Here we report the observation of a second-order nonlinear thermoelectric effect; we develop a method to measure nonlinear thermoelectricity and observe that a superconducting MoGe film on Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ generates a voltage proportional to the square of the applied temperature gradient. The nonlinear thermoelectric generation demonstrated here provides a way for making power generators that produce electric power from temperature fluctuations.