Large thermoelectric figure of merit for three-dimensional topological Anderson insulators via line dislocation engineering

We study the thermoelectric properties of three-dimensional topological Anderson insulators with line dislocations. We show that at high densities of dislocations the thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$ can be dominated by one-dimensional topologically protected conducting states channeled through the lattice screw dislocations in the topological insulator materials with a nonzero time-reversal-invariant momentum such as Bi$_{0.9}$Sb$_{0.1}$. When the chemical potential does not exceed much the mobility edge the $ZT$ at room temperatures can reach large values, much higher than unity for reasonable parameters, hence making this system a strong candidate for applications in heat management of nanodevices.