Phonon drag thermal Hall effect in metallic strontium titanate

Abstract

SrTiO3, a quantum paralectric, displays a detectable phonon thermal Hall effect (THE). Here, we show that the amplitude of the THE is extremely sensitive to stoichiometry. It drastically decreases upon substitution of a tiny fraction of Sr atoms with Ca, which stabilizes the ferroelectric order. It drastically increases by an even lower density of oxygen vacancies, which turn the system to a dilute metal. The enhancement in the metallic state exceeds by far the sum of the electronic and the phononic contributions. We explain this observation as an outcome of three features: 1) Heat is mostly transported by phonons; 2) the electronic Hall angle is extremely large; and 3) there is substantial momentum exchange between electrons and phonons. Starting from Herring’s picture of phonon drag, we arrive to a quantitative account of the enhanced THE. Thus, phonon drag, hitherto detected as an amplifier of thermoelectric coefficients, can generate a purely thermal transverse response in a dilute metal with a large Hall angle. Our results reveal a hitherto-unknown consequence of momentum-conserving collisions between electrons and phonons.