Coherent control of thermoelectric currents and noise in quantum thermocouples

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how quantum interference can be used to enhance the performance of quantum thermocouples, improving power, efficiency, and noise characteristics through phase coherent control.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to control thermoelectric currents in quantum thermocouples using quantum interference, with a proposed setup outperforming incoherent designs.

Findings

Enhanced power generation in quantum thermocouples

Reduced output current noise through phase control

Improved efficiency compared to incoherent counterparts

Abstract

Three-terminal coherent conductors are able to perform as quantum thermocouples when the heat absorbed from one terminal is transformed into useful power in the other two. Allowing for a phase coherent coupling to the heat source, we introduce a way to control and improve the thermoelectric response via quantum interference. A simple setup composed of a scanning probe between two resonant tunneling regions is proposed that achieves better performance than incoherent analogs by enhancing the generated power and efficiency, and reducing the output current noise.