Resonant thermoelectric transport in atomic chains with Fano defects

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that Fano defects in atomic chains can significantly enhance thermoelectric efficiency, with quasiperiodic arrangements further improving ZT by suppressing phonon transport.

Contribution

It provides an analytical framework for understanding thermoelectric transport in atomic chains with Fano defects and explores the effects of quasiperiodicity on ZT enhancement.

Findings

Fano defects increase thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) in atomic chains.

Quasiperiodic Fano defect arrangements further improve ZT.

Long-range disorder suppresses low-frequency phonons, enhancing thermoelectric performance.

Abstract

Atomic clusters attached to a low-dimensional system, called Fano defects, produce rich wave interferences. In this work, we analytically found an enhanced thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) in periodic atomic chains with Fano defects, compared to those without such defects. We further study self-assembled DNA-like systems with periodic and quasiperiodically placed Fano defects by using a real-space renormalization method developed for the Kubo-Greenwood formula, in which tight-binding and Born models are respectively used for the electric and lattice thermal conductivities. The results reveal that the quasiperiodicity could be another ZT-improving factor, whose long-range disorder inhibits low-frequency acoustic phonons insensitive to local defects.