Thermoelectric properties of a weakly coupled quantum dot: enhanced thermoelectric efficiency

Abstract

We study the thermoelectric coefficients of a multi-level quantum dot (QD) weakly coupled to two electron reservoirs in the Coulomb blockade regime. Detailed calculations and analytical expressions of the power factor and the figure of merit are presented. We restrict our interest to the limit where the energy separation between successive energy levels is much larger than the thermal energy (i.e., the quantum limit) and we report a giant enhancement of the figure of merit due to the violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law when phonons are frozen. We point out the similarity of the electronic and the phonon contribution to the thermal conductance for zero dimensional electrons and phonons. Both contributions show an activated behavior. Our findings suggest that the control of the electron and phonon confinement effects can lead to nanostructures with improved thermoelectric properties.

8 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Giant thermopower and figure of merit in single-molecule devices
• Thermoelectric transport through strongly correlated quantum dots
• Optimal thermoelectric figure of merit of a molecular junction
• Violation of the Wiedemann-Franz Law in a Single-Electron Transistor
• Thermal conductance of a weakly coupled quantum dot

Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Nonlinear thermovoltage and thermocurrent in quantum dots
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• Thermoelectric properties of an interacting quantum dot-based heat engine
• Enhancement of thermoelectric efficiency and violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law due to Fano effect
• Non-Monotonic Thermoelectric Currents and Energy Harvesting in Interacting Double Quantum-Dots
• Spin-dependent thermoelectric effects in transport through a nanoscopic junction involving spin impurity
• Quantum confinement suppressing electronic heat flow below the Wiedemann-Franz law
• Microwave-mediated heat transport through a quantum dot
• Electronic heat current fluctuations in a quantum dot
• Strong spin Seebeck effect in Kondo T-shaped double quantum dots
• Thermoelectric inversion in a resonant quantum dot-cavity system in the steady-state regime
• Designer thermal switches: Effect of the contact material on instantaneous thermoelectric transport through a strongly interacting quantum dot
• A Strongly Correlated Quantum-Dot Heat Engine with Optimal Performance: An Non-equilibrium Green's function Approach