Inelastic thermoelectric transport and fluctuations in mesoscopic system

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in inelastic thermoelectric effects in mesoscopic systems, highlighting their unique mechanisms, unconventional phenomena, and potential for high-performance energy conversion.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of inelastic thermoelectric effects, emphasizing differences from elastic effects and exploring fluctuations in mesoscopic systems.

Findings

Distinct microscopic mechanisms for elastic and inelastic effects

Unconventional effects like heat-charge separation and cooling by heating

Discussion of fluctuations in mesoscopic thermoelectric systems

Abstract

In the past decade, a new research frontier emerges at the interface between physics and renewable energy, termed as the inelastic thermoelectric effects where inelastic transport processes play a key role. The study of inelastic thermoelectric effects broadens our understanding of thermoelectric phenomena and provides new routes towards high-performance thermoelectric energy conversion. Here, we review the main progress in this field, with a particular focus on inelastic thermoelectric effects induced by the electron-phonon and electron-photon interactions. We introduce the motivations, the basic pictures, and prototype models, as well as the unconventional effects induced by inelastic thermoelectric transport. These unconventional effects include the separation of heat and charge transport, the cooling by heating effect, the linear thermal transistor effect, nonlinear enhancement of performance, Maxwell demons, and cooperative effects. We find that elastic and inelastic thermoelectric effects are described by significantly different microscopic mechanisms and belong to distinct linear thermodynamic classes. We also pay special attention to the unique aspect of fluctuations in small mesoscopic thermoelectric systems. Finally, we discuss the challenges and future opportunities in the field of inelastic thermoelectrics.