Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten
DS 33: Thermoelectric materials II: Reduced dimensionality (Focused session – Organizers: Meyer, Heiliger)
DS 33.2: Talk
Thursday, March 29, 2012, 11:45–12:00, H 2032
Giant thermoelectric efficiency in single electron transistors with superconducting island — •Christopher Eltschka1 and Jens Siewert2,3 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany — 2Departamento de Química Física, Universidad del País Vasco, 48080 Bilbao, Spain — 3Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, 48011 Bilbao, Spain
It is well known that dimensional reduction of the electron dynamics
may enhance the thermodynamic efficiency [1,2]. A special case of such
reduced dimensionality is the single-electron transistor (SET) where
at low temperatures electron transport is governed by Coulomb blockade
effects. We specifically consider an SET with superconducting island
(NSN SET) in the parity regime. We find a dramatically enhanced value
for the figure of merit ZT. By extending the statistical
interpretation of the thermopower by Matveev [3] to the figure of
merit, we are able to explain this high value purely from the
statistical distribution of transport. This statistical interpretation
of ZT indicates a general strategy to increase ZT which might be
useful also in the analysis of other systems.
[1] L. D. Hicks, M. S. Dresselhaus, Phys. Rev. B 47, 12727 (1993)
[2] G. D. Mahan, J. O. Sofo, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 93, 7436 (1996)
[3] K. A. Matveev, Statistical and Dynamical Aspects of Mesoscopic
Systems. Proceedings of the XVI Sitges Conference on Statistical
Mechanics (2000)