Effects of photon field on heat transport through a quantum wire attached to leads

TL;DR

This paper explores how a quantized photon field influences heat and thermoelectric transport in a quantum wire, revealing conditions for enhanced or suppressed thermoelectric effects and introducing a method to amplify thermoelectric currents in nano-devices.

Contribution

The study introduces a quantum master equation approach to analyze photon-induced effects on heat and thermoelectric transport in quantum wires, highlighting conditions for transport enhancement or suppression.

Findings

Photon field can induce negative heat current.

Thermoelectric transport is enhanced when thermal energy exceeds photon energy.

Photon resonance can suppress thermoelectric transport.

Abstract

We theoretically investigate photo-thermoelectric transport through a quantum wire in a photon cavity coupled to electron reservoirs with different temperatures. Our approach, based on a quantum master equation, allows us to investigate the influence of a quantized photon field on the heat current and thermoelectric transport in the system. We find that the heat current through the quantum wire is influenced by the photon field resulting in a negative heat current in certain cases. The characteristics of the transport are studied by tuning the ratio, $\hbar\omega_{\gamma} / k_{\rm B} \Delta T$, between the photon energy, $\hbar\omega_{\gamma}$, and the thermal energy, $k_{\rm B} \Delta T$. The thermoelectric transport is enhanced by the cavity photons when $k_{\rm B} \Delta T > \hbar\omega_{\gamma}$. By contrast, if $k_{\rm B} \Delta T < \hbar\omega_{\gamma}$, the photon field is dominant and a suppression in the thermoelectric transport can be found in the case when the cavity-photon field is close to a resonance with the two lowest one-electron states in the system. Our approach points to a new technique to amplify thermoelectric current in nano-devices.