Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 40: Transport: Molecular Electronics I (TT jointly with O)

O 40.9: Talk

Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 12:00–12:15, HSZ 304

Heat dissipation and thermopower in atomic-scale junctions — •Fabian Pauly — Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Germany

In this talk, I will present recent combined experimental and theoretical efforts to understand the heat dissipation in atomic-scale junctions [1,2]. Using custom-fabricated scanning probes with integrated nanoscale thermocouples, we find that if the junctions have transmission characteristics that are strongly energy dependent, this heat dissipation is asymmetric (that is, unequal between the electrodes) and also dependent on both the bias polarity and the identity of the majority charge carriers. In contrast, junctions consisting of only a few gold atoms, whose transmission characteristics show weak energy dependence, do not exhibit appreciable asymmetry. Our results unambiguously relate the electronic transmission characteristics of atomic-scale junctions to their heat dissipation properties, establishing a framework for understanding heat dissipation in a range of mesoscopic systems where transport is elastic.
W. Lee, K. Kim, W. Jeong, L. A. Zotti, F. Pauly, J. C. Cuevas, and P. Reddy, Nature 498, 209 (2013).
L. A. Zotti, M. Bürkle, F. Pauly, W. Lee, K. Kim, W. Jeong, Y. Asai, P. Reddy, and J. C. Cuevas, New J. Phys. (accepted); arXiv:1307.8336.