Lineshape of the thermopower of quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper develops a single-electron tunnelling model that accurately predicts the thermopower of quantum dots across various energy scales, aligning well with experimental data and including complex co-tunneling effects.

Contribution

It introduces a model that incorporates all-order co-tunneling effects to predict quantum dot thermopower, improving interpretation of experimental results.

Findings

Model predicts thermopower accurately across energy scales

Includes effects of co-tunneling in the analysis

Matches experimental data well

Abstract

Quantum dots are an important model system for thermoelectric phenomena, and may be used to enhance the thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency in functional materials. It is therefore important to obtain a detailed understanding of a quantum-dot's thermopower as a function of the Fermi energy. However, so far it has proven difficult to take effects of co-tunnelling into account in the interpretation of experimental data. Here we show that a single-electron tunnelling model, using knowledge of the dot's electrical conductance which in fact includes all-order co-tunneling effects, predicts the thermopower of quantum dots as a function of the relevant energy scales, in very good agreement with experiment.