Anomalous Nernst effect in Fe–Si alloy films

Abstract

We experimentally investigated the anomalous Nernst effect (ANE) in an Fe3Si film, whose ANE was predicted to be large, based on the topological property and the Berry curvature, and systematically compared it with other compositions of iron-silicide, viz., Fe2Si, FeSi, and FeSi2 films. Although both the ferromagnetic Fe3Si and Fe2Si films showed an ANE voltage, the highest ANE coefficient SANE = 1.0 μV K−1 was obtained for Fe3Si, which is larger than that for Fe. We also measured the Seebeck and anomalous Hall effects to estimate the transverse thermoelectric conductivity αyx, suggesting that the contribution of αyx was dominant in the Fe3Si ANE enhancement.