2016/12/12 by Chih-Chieh Chen, Chen, Chih-Chieh, David M.-T. Kuo +3
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1612.03584
openalex publication_date 2016/12/12 · openalex created_date 2017/01/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The nonlinear electron and heat currents of quantum dot molecules (QDMs) under a temperature bias are theoretically investigated, including all correlation functions arising from electron Coulomb interactions in QDMs. Unlike the case of double QDs, the maximum efficiency of serially coupled triple QDs (SCTQD) occurs in the orbital depletion regime owing to the interdot Coulomb blockade. The electron current in SCTQD shows a bipolar oscillatory behavior with respect to the variation of QD energy levels, whereas the heat current does not show such a behavior. This is mainly attributed to thermal-induced bias. In addition, we illustrate how the efficiency of SCTQD is influenced by the external load resistance, and phonon heat flow. Finally, a direction-dependent electron current driven by a temperature bias has been demonstrated for a SCTQD with staircase-like energy levels.