In physics and chemistry, the Nernst effect (also termed the first Nernst–Ettingshausen effect, after Walther Nernst and Albert von Ettingshausen) is a thermoelectric (or thermomagnetic) phenomenon observed when a sample allowing electrical conduction is subjected to a magnetic field and a temperature gradient normal (perpendicular) to each other.
If there is a magnetic field transversal to the temperature gradient and the carriers are electrically charged, they experience a force perpendicular to their direction of motion (also the direction of the temperature gradient) and to the magnetic field.
The semiconductors exhibit the Nernst effect, as first observed by T. V. Krylova and Mochan in the Soviet Union in 1955.
[2][3][4] High-temperature superconductors exhibit the Nernst effect both in the superconducting and in the pseudogap phase.
[5] Heavy fermion superconductors can show a strong Nernst signal which is likely not due to the vortices.