First-principles study of anomalous Nernst effect in Cr-doped Bi2Se3

Abstract We have investigated electronic structures and thermoelectric properties on six quintuple layers of Cr-doped Bi 2 Se 3 as a model of quantized anomalous Hall insulator, Chern insulator. The Chern insulator might be a good transverse thermoelectric material exhibiting a large anomalous Nernst effect by the intrinsic contribution of anomalous Hall effect and large Seebeck effect. Based on rigid band approximation, we have performed first-principles density functional calculations of carrier-dependent anomalous Nernst coefficients. To optimize thermoelectric performance, we discussed the origin of the anomalous Nernst effect, divided into contributions from pure Nernst and Seebeck terms. We found the significant contribution of the Seebeck term in Cr-doped Bi 2 Se 3 .