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Giant Thermopower Changes Related to the Resistivity Maximum and Colossal Magnetoresistance in EuCd2P2

Judith Grafenhorst1, Sarah Krebber2, Kristin Kliemt2, Cornelius Krellner2, Elena Hassinger3,1,4, and Ulrike Stockert1,4,3,*

  • *Contact author: ulrike.stockert@tu-dresden.de
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 106302 – Published 4 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/95x8-3wtb

Abstract

We present the thermopower of EuCd2P2, a material which exhibits a large resistivity peak with significant magnetic field dependence in the temperature range of 10–25 K. In the same region, we observe a highly unusual behavior of the thermopower with two sign changes and giant extrema. The overall variation of the thermopower exceeds 4000  μV/K and takes place in an extremely narrow temperature region of less than 5 K. The anomaly is suppressed completely in a small magnetic field of 0.5 T. We discuss this observation using a simple drift-diffusion picture and taking into account that the temperature gradient inducing the thermopower voltage is accompanied by a gradient of the electrical resistivity. Our simple estimation yields the correct magnitude, shape, and field dependence of the thermopower anomaly observed in EuCd2P2. These results open a new route to giant thermopower values via gradients of electronic properties.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 137, 106302– Published 4 September, 2026
  • Received 2 March 2026
  • Accepted 9 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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