Quantum control of nonlinear thermoelectricity at the nanoscale

Abstract

We theoretically study how one can control and enhance nonlinear thermoelectricity by regulating quantum coherence in nanostructures such as a quantum dot system or a single-molecule junction. In nanostructures, the typical temperature scale is much smaller than the resonance width, which largely suppresses thermoelectric effects. Yet we demonstrate one can achieve a reasonably good thermoelectric performance by regulating quantum coherence. Engaging a quantum-dot interferometer (a quantum dot embedded in the ring geometry) as a heat engine, we explore the idea of thermoelectric enhancement induced by the Fano resonance. We develop an analytical treatment of fully nonlinear responses for a dot with or without strong interaction. Based on the microscopic model with the nonequilibrium Green function technique, we show how to enhance efficiency and/or output power as well as where to locate an optimal gate voltage. We also argue how to assess nonlinear thermoelectricity by linear-response quantities.

13 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Giant thermopower and figure of merit in single-molecule devices
• Experimental Evidence for Quantum Interference and Vibrationally Induced Decoherence in Single-Molecule Junctions
• Giant Thermoelectric Effect from Transmission Supernodes
• Control of electron transport through Fano resonances in molecular wires
• Strongly nonlinear thermovoltage and heat dissipation in interacting quantum dots
• Thermoelectricity near Anderson localization transitions
• Enhancing thermoelectric properties of graphene quantum rings
• Conditions for requiring nonlinear thermoelectric transport theory in nanodevices
• Thermoelectric efficiency of nanoscale devices in the linear regime
• Localized magnetic states in Rashba dots
• Mesoscopic thermoelectric transport near zero transmission energies
• Exact path-integral evaluation of locally interacting systems: The subtlety of operator ordering

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Quantum coherent control of nonlinear thermoelectric transport in a triple-dot Aharonov-Bohm heat engine
• Strong coupling in thermoelectric nanojunctions: a reaction coordinate framework
• Non-equilibrium thermoelectric transport across normal metal-Quantum dot-Superconductor hybrid system within the Coulomb blockade regime
• A review on Aharonov-Bohm quantum machines: Thermoelectric heat engines and diodes
• Quantum coherent control of linear and nonlinear thermoelectricity on graphene nanostructure heat engines
• A Strongly Correlated Quantum-Dot Heat Engine with Optimal Performance: An Non-equilibrium Green's function Approach
• Topological Interface States and Nonlinear Thermoelectric Performance in Armchair Graphene Nanoribbon Heterostructures
• Enhancement of the thermoelectric properties in bilayer graphene structures induced by Fano resonances