Electrical and thermal properties of strain- and electric field-induced topological crystalline insulators

Abstract

This paper elaborates theoretically the strain and electric field effects on the electronic density of states (DOS) and electronic heat capacity (EHC) of the topological crystalline insulator SnTe (001) and related alloys. We employ Green’s function calculations for DOS and the Boltzmann approach for EHC. Schottky anomalies are found in EHC based on the entropy analysis. Strain- and electric field-induced DOS indicates the band gap opening in the system. Relative trends with respect to the strain modulus (electric field strength) show an increasing (a fluctuating) trend for the Schottky temperature. The results may lead to wide-ranging applications in thermoelectrics and tunable topological electronics/spintronics.