Judith Grafenhorst, Sarah Krebber, Kristin Kliemt, Cornelius Krellner, Elena Hassinger, Ulrike Stockert
We present the thermopower of EuCd_{2}P_{2}, 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 EuCd_{2}P_{2}. These results open a new route to giant thermopower values via gradients of electronic properties.