Three-terminal interface as a thermoelectric generator beyond Seebeck effect
arXiv:1907.01140 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.101.235305
Abstract
We investigate thermoelectric transport through interfaces with inelastic scatterings by developing a quantum theory, which has been extensively validated by existing theories. We find that under temperature bias, while a two-terminal conductor-insulator interface behaves only as a thermal resistor, a three-terminal conductor-insulator-conductor interface can function as an electricity generator caused by phonon-mediated electron scatterings with heat-charge current separation. Unlike conventional thermoelectrics which is a property of a bulk caused by the Seebeck effect, this thermoelectric behavior is a property of an interface driven by electron-phonon scatterings.
arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (15)
- Fundamental aspects of steady-state conversion of heat to work at the nanoscale
- Interface thermal resistance between dissimilar anharmonic lattice
- Optimal energy quanta to current conversion
- Three-Terminal Energy Harvester with Coupled Quantum Dots
- Three-terminal thermoelectric transport through a molecular junction
- Strong bounds on Onsager coefficients and efficiency for three terminal thermoelectric transport in a magnetic field
- Quantum effects in the thermoelectric power factor of low-dimensional semiconductors
- Thermoelectric three-terminal hopping transport through one-dimensional nanosystems
- Multi-terminal Thermoelectric Transport in a Magnetic Field: Bounds on Onsager Coefficients and Efficiency
- Efficiency of three-terminal thermoelectric transport under broken-time reversal symmetry
- Separation of heat and charge currents for boosted thermoelectric conversion
- Steady state thermal transport in anharmonic systems: Application to molecular junctions
- Improved Dyson series expansion for steady-state quantum transport beyond the weak coupling limit - divergences and resolution
- Thermoelectric transport through a quantum nanoelectromechanical system and its backaction
- A generalized Caroli formula for transmission coefficient with lead-lead coupling