Thermopower signatures and spectroscopy of the canyon of conductance suppression

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermoelectric properties of conductance suppression in quantum dots, revealing characteristic thermopower signals that can serve as a complementary diagnostic tool for complex quantum transport phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces the analysis of thermoelectric transport in the conductance canyon using the second-order von Neumann approach, highlighting thermopower zeros as key signatures.

Findings

Thermopower exhibits zeros corresponding to conductance suppression.

Thermoelectric measurements can complement conductance studies.

The second-order von Neumann approach effectively captures these phenomena.

Abstract

Interference effects in quantum dots between different transport channels can lead to a strong suppression of conductance, which cuts like a canyon through the common conductance plot [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 186804 (2010)]. In the present work, we consider the thermoelectric transport properties of the canyon of conductance suppression using the second-order von Neumann approach. We observe a characteristic signal for the zeros of the thermopower. This demonstrates that thermoelectric measurements are an interesting complimentary tool to study complex phenomena for transport through confined systems.