SPICE Workshop on Ferrons and Magnons: friends or foes? July 7th - 9th, 2026
Ryo Iguchi
Thermoelectric effects allow for direct conversion between heat and electricity without any moving parts. Traditionally, these effects have been linked to mobile charge carriers. In this work, we demonstrate a novel form of thermoelectricity originating from bound charges in ferroelectric insulators. Specifically, we observe temperature changes in a ferroelectric material subjected to an AC electric field, using multi-harmonic lock-in thermography [1].
The temperature gradients we detect are governed by the field-induced displacement current, revealing a dielectric Peltier effect in a dielectric material [2,3]. Remarkably, near the ferroelectric-paraelectric phase transition, the Peltier coefficient in our system reaches its maximum, where the values are several orders of magnitude larger than those previously reported for conductors. These findings unveil previously hidden functionalities of ferroelectric materials, offering new prospects for thermal management through directional heat transport in insulators.
[2] M. Marvan, Czech. J. Phys, vol. 19, p. 1240, 1969.
[3] R. Iguchi, et. al., ArXiv 2606.25767, 2026.