Nonmonotonic Temperature Dependence of the Thermal Hall Angle of a YBa2Cu3O6.95 Single Crystal

We have performed high-resolution measurements of the magnetic field (0 TB9 T) and temperature (10 KT<140 K) dependence of the longitudinal and transverse Hall thermal conductivity of a twinned YBa₂Cu₃O_6.95 single crystal. We have used and compared two recently published methods to extract the thermal Hall angle _H(T, B). Our results indicate that cot(_H) varies quite accurately as T⁴ in the intermediate temperature range 0.3c. It shows a well defined minimum at T_m20 K which resembles that observed in the c-axis microwave conductivity. The electronic part of the longitudinal and the transverse thermal conductivity show the scaling behavior for transport properties predicted for d-wave superconductors in the temperature range 18 KT30 K.