Phonon-drag thermopower in 3D Dirac semimetals.

A theory of low-temperature phonon-drag thermopower S(g) in three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetals has been developed considering screened electron-phonon deformation potential coupling. Numerical investigations of S(g), in the boundary scattering regime for phonons, are made in 3D Dirac semimetal Cd3As2, as a function of temperature T and electron concentration n e. S(g) is found to increase rapidly for about T  <  1 K and nearly levels off for higher T. It is also seen that S(g) increases (decreases) with decreasing n e at lower (higher) T (<2 K). A screening effect is found to be very significant, strongly affecting T and n e dependence for about  <1 K and becoming negligible at higher temperature. In the Bloch-Gruneisen (BG) regime the power laws S(g) ~ T(8) (T(4)) and S(g) ~ n(e)(-5/3)(n(e)(-1/3) with (without) screening are obtained. These laws with respect to T and n e are, respectively, characteristics of 3D phonons and Dirac 3D electrons. Comparison with diffusion thermopower S(d) shows that S (g) dominates (and is much greater than) S(d) for about T  >  0.2 K. Herring's law S(g) μ p ~ T (-1), relating phonon limited mobility μ p and S(g) in the BG regime, is shown to be valid in 3D Dirac semimetals. The results obtained here are compared with those in 3D semiconductors, low-dimensional semiconductor heterojunctions and graphene. We conclude that n e-dependent measurements, rather than T-dependent ones, provide a clearer signature of the 3D Dirac semimetal phase.