Local and non-local thermopowers in three-terminal nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper investigates thermoelectric effects in three-terminal quantum dot structures, proposing a practical measurement protocol for local and non-local thermopowers, with applications to hybrid devices involving superconductors.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent experimental protocol for measuring transport coefficients in three-terminal systems, comparing it with existing methods and analyzing thermopower in hybrid superconducting devices.

Findings

Proposed a two-step measurement protocol using four-probe technique.

Analyzed thermopower induced by superconducting electrodes in subgap regimes.

Compared new method with existing approaches in the literature.

Abstract

The thermoelectric effects in three-terminal structures with a quantum dot are considered. We propose the experimentally consistent protocol for determination of the transport coefficients in terms of the local and non-local conductances and thermopowers that can be measured in two steps, applying the `four probe technique'. This proposal is compared with other approaches discussed so far in the literature. As an example we study in detail the thermopower induced by the superconducting electrode in a subgap regime which might be useful for analysis of novel hybrid devices.