Imaging the Ettingshausen effect and cryogenic thermoelectric cooling in a van der Waals semimetal

Abstract: Attaining viable thermoelectric cooling at cryogenic temperatures is of major fundamental and technological interest for novel electronics and quantum materials applications. In-device temperature control can provide a more efficient and precise thermal environment management as compared to the conventional global cooling. Here we develop nanoscale cryogenic imaging of a magneto-thermoelectric effect and demonstrate absolute cooling and an ultrahigh Ettingshausen effect in exfoliated WTe2 Weyl semimetal flakes at liquid He temperatures. Application of a current and perpendicular magnetic field gives rise to cooling via generation of electron-hole pairs on one side of the sample and heating by their recombination at the opposite side. In contrast to bulk materials, the cooling process is found to be nonmonotonic in magnetic field and device size. The derived model of magneto-thermoelectricity in mesoscopic semimetal devices shows that the cooling efficiency and the induced temperature profiles are governed by the interplay between sample geometry, electron-hole recombination length, magnetic field, and flake and substrate heat conductivities. The findings open the way for direct integration of microscopic thermoelectric cooling and for temperature landscape engineering in novel van der Waals devices.