Thermoelectric Inversion in a Resonant Quantum Dot-Cavity System in the Steady-State Regime
1
Physics Department, College of Science, University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani 46001, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
2
Komar Research Center, Komar University of Science and Technology, Sulaimani 46001, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
3
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National United University, 2, Lienda, Miaoli 36063, Taiwan
4
School of Science and Engineering, Reykjavik University, Menntavegur 1, IS-101 Reykjavik, Iceland
5
Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nanomaterials 2019, 9(5), 741; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano9050741
Received: 8 April 2019 / Revised: 5 May 2019 / Accepted: 7 May 2019 / Published: 14 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Materials for Thermoelectrics)
We theoretically investigate thermoelectric effects in a quantum dot system under the influence of a linearly polarized photon field confined to a 3D cavity. A temperature gradient is applied to the system via two electron reservoirs that are connected to each end of the quantum dot system. The thermoelectric current in the steady state is explored using a quantum master equation. In the presence of the quantized photons, extra channels, the photon replica states, are formed generating a photon-induced thermoelectric current. We observe that the photon replica states contribute to the transport irrespective of the direction of the thermal gradient. In the off-resonance regime, when the energy difference between the lowest states of the quantum dot system is smaller than the photon energy, the thermoelectric current is almost blocked and a plateau is seen in the thermoelectric current for strong electron–photon coupling strength. In the resonant regime, an inversion of thermoelectric current emerges due to the Rabi-splitting. Therefore, the photon field can change both the magnitude and the sign of the thermoelectric current induced by the temperature gradient in the absence of a voltage bias between the leads.
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Keywords:
thermoelectric transport; quantum dot; QED; quantum master equation; electro-optical effects
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MDPI and ACS Style
Abdullah, N.R.; Tang, C.-S.; Manolescu, A.; Gudmundsson, V. Thermoelectric Inversion in a Resonant Quantum Dot-Cavity System in the Steady-State Regime. Nanomaterials 2019, 9, 741.
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