Thermoelectric efficiency at maximum power in a quantum dot

2008/08/01 by Massimiliano Esposito, Katja Lindenberg, Christian Van den Broeck +1 · 17 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #cond-mat.stat-mech

paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/85/60010

published as EPL 85, 60010 (2009) · 4 pages, 3 figures

arxiv created 2008/08/01 · openalex publication_date 2009/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

Abstract

We identify the operational conditions for maximum power of a nanothermoelectric engine consisting of a single quantum level embedded between two leads at different temperatures and chemical potentials. The corresponding thermodynamic efficiency agrees with the Curzon-Ahlborn expression up to quadratic terms in the gradients, supporting the thesis of universality beyond linear response.

Citations

• Modulation of Thermoelectric Power of Individual Carbon Nanotubes
• The Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics of Small Systems
• Solving rate equations for electron tunneling via discrete quantum states

Cited by

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• Stochastic thermodynamics for a periodically driven single-particle pump
• Efficiency at maximum power of thermochemical engines with near-independent particles
• Efficiency of a thermodynamic motor at maximum power
• Thermoelectrics of Interacting Nanosystems—Exploiting Superselection Instead of Time-Reversal Symmetry
• Electronic Maxwell demon in the coherent strong-coupling regime
• Building an irreversible Carnot-like heat engine with an overdamped harmonic oscillator
• Magnon-driven quantum-dot heat engine
• Heat Driven Transport in Serial Double Quantum Dot Devices
• Correlations of heat and charge currents in quantum-dot thermoelectric engines
• A theoretical study on the performances of thermoelectric heat engine and refrigerator with two-dimensional electron reservoirs
• Energy transmutation in nonequilibrium quantum systems
• Bound on thermoelectric power in a magnetic field within linear response

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