2015/01/06 by Kay Brandner, Udo Seifert
Engineering · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #Asymmetry #Carnot cycle #Condensed matter physics #Field (mathematics) #Function (biology) #Magnetic field #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Physics #Power (physics) #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Seebeck coefficient #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #Thermoelectric effect #Upper and lower bounds #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.91.012121
published as Phys. Rev. E 91, 012121 (2015) · 9 pages, 6 figures, Phys. Rev. E, in press
arxiv created 2015/01/06 · openalex publication_date 2015/01/12 · arxiv updated 2015/01/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
For thermoelectric power generation in a multiterminal geometry, strong numerical evidence for a universal bound as a function of the magnetic-field induced asymmetry of the nondiagonal Onsager coefficients is presented. This bound implies, inter alia, that the power vanishes at least linearly when the maximal efficiency is approached. In particular, this result rules out that Carnot efficiency can be reached at finite power, which an analysis based on the second law only would, in principle, allow.