Time-dependent thermal transport theory

Abstract

Understanding thermal transport in nanoscale systems presents important challenges to both theory and experiment. In particular, the concept of local temperature at the nanoscale appears difficult to justify. Here, we propose a novel theoretical approach where we replace the temperature gradient with controllable external black-body radiations. The theory recovers known physical results, for example the linear relation between the thermal current and the temperatures difference of two black-bodies. Furthermore, our theory is not limited to the linear regime and goes beyond accounting for non linear effects and transient phenomena. In the strong coupling and large temperature gradients, we show that there is a maximum energy current that the system can sustain and we recover the Kramers' turnover. Since the present theory is general and can be adapted to describe both electron and phonon dynamics, it provides a first step towards a unified formalism for investigating thermal and electronic transport.

5 pages, 4 figures, revtex4-1

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum thermal transport in nanostructures
• Quantum Electrodynamical Density-Functional Theory: Bridging Quantum Optics and Electronic-Structure Theory
• Heat conduction in molecular transport junctions
• Scattering theory of nonlinear thermoelectric transport
• Bound states in ab initio approaches to quantum transport: A time-dependent formulation
• Multiterminal single-molecule--graphene-nanoribbon thermoelectric devices with gate-voltage tunable figure of merit ZT
• Thermal equilibration between two quantum systems
• Luttinger-field approach to thermoelectric transport in nanoscale conductors

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Dynamics of energy transport and entropy production in ac-driven quantum electron systems
• Periodic energy transport and entropy production in quantum electronics
• Landauer's formula with finite-time relaxation: Kramers' crossover in electronic transport
• Temperature-driven transient charge and heat currents in nanoscale conductors
• Heat asymmetries in nanoscale conductors: The role of decoherence and inelasticity
• Cavity-photon controlled thermoelectric transport through a quantum wire
• Functional theories of thermoelectric phenomena
• Simulating time-dependent thermoelectric transport in quantum systems
• Ultrafast X-ray Diffraction Thermometry Measures the Influence of Spin Excitations on the Heat Transport through nanolayers
• Theory of Transient Heat Conduction