Planar Thermal Hall Effect from Phonons in Cuprates
A surprising “planar” thermal Hall effect, whereby the field is parallel to the current, has recently been observed in a few magnetic insulators; this effect has been attributed to exotic excitations such as Majorana fermions or chiral magnons. Here, we investigate the possibility of a planar thermal Hall effect in three different cuprate materials, in which the conventional thermal Hall conductivity <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:msub><a:mi>κ</a:mi><a:mi>xy</a:mi></a:msub></a:math> (with an out-of-plane field perpendicular to the current) is dominated by either electrons or phonons. Our measurements show that the planar <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:msub><c:mi>κ</c:mi><c:mi>xy</c:mi></c:msub></c:math> from electrons in cuprates is zero, as expected from the absence of a Lorentz force in the planar configuration. By contrast, we observe a sizable planar <e:math xmlns:e="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><e:msub><e:mi>κ</e:mi><e:mi>xy</e:mi></e:msub></e:math> in those samples where the thermal Hall response is due to phonons, even though it should, in principle, be forbidden by the high crystal symmetry. Our findings call for a careful reexamination of the mechanisms responsible for the phonon thermal Hall effect in insulators. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Authors
- W. N. Hardy
- Marie-Eve Boulanger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0375-2377)
- T. Takayama
- Louis Taillefer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8729-2194)
- Steven Thériault (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1552-8134)
- Zexiang Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7432-7936)
- Sunseng Pyon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5716-1791)
- G. Grissonnanche (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5115-3125)
- H. Takagi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5700-3761)
- Ke-Jun Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2109-0765)
- Lu Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0407-9209)
- D. A. Bonn
- Ruixing Liang
- Léna Le Roux
Institutions
- University of Stuttgart (DE)
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CA)
- Université de Sherbrooke (CA)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (US)
- Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research (DE)
- Regroupement Québécois sur les Matériaux de Pointe (CA)
- Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology (DE)
- Institut Polytechnique de Paris (FR)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review X
- Published
- 2024-10-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevx.14.041011
- Citations
- 6
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Condensed Matter Physics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.87
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Canada First Research Excellence Fund
- Office of Science
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering