Thermopower oscillations in mesoscopic Andreev interferometers

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed theoretical explanation for thermopower oscillations in mesoscopic Andreev interferometers, accounting for symmetric oscillations and predicting temperature-dependent sign reversal, aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive theory explaining symmetric thermopower oscillations via electron-hole symmetry violation and charge imbalance effects.

Findings

Symmetric thermopower oscillations explained by charge imbalance.

Prediction of thermopower sign reversal with temperature.

Theory aligns with experimental data by Parsons et al.

Abstract

Anomalously large thermopower of mesoscopic normal-metal/superconductor interferometers has been investigated by Chandrasekhar et al. It was shown that, depending on the geometry of the interferometer, the thermopower is either symmetric or antisymmetric periodic function of the magnetic flux. We develop a detailed theory of the observed thermoelectric phenomena in the framework of the non-equilibrium quasiclassical approach. In particular we provide, for the first time, a possible explanation of the symmetric thermopower oscillations. This effect is attributed to the electron-hole symmetry violation that originates in the steady-state charge imbalance between different arms of the interferometer. Our theory can be tested by an additional control over the charge imbalance in a modified setup geometry. We also predict a sign reversal behavior of the thermopower with increasing temperature that is consistent with the experiments by Parsons et al.