Peltier effect of phonon driven by ac electromagnetic waves

TL;DR

This paper predicts a phonon-based Peltier effect induced by linearly polarized light, demonstrating a nonlinear optical phenomenon that generates an energy current in non-centrosymmetric materials, with potential experimental observation.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear Peltier effect driven by phonons under optical illumination and formulates its theoretical framework, highlighting conditions for its occurrence.

Findings

Photogalvanic energy current occurs only in non-centrosymmetric systems.

A one-dimensional ion chain model predicts observable energy currents.

The effect can be induced using available THz-infrared light sources.

Abstract

Steady current in metals induces a thermal gradient, a phenomenon known as the Peltier effect. The Peltier effect is one of the fundamental phenomena in the thermoelectric properties of materials and is also used in applications such as refrigerators. In this work, we show that an analogous phenomenon occurs by phonons in a material subject to linearly-polarized light. Under light illumination, an energy current of phonons occurs through a nonlinear optical effect similar to the bulk photovoltaic effect. We formulate the nonlinear Peltier coefficient of the photogalvanic energy current carried by phonons using nonlinear response theory. From the general formula, we show that the photogalvanic energy current occurs only in a non-centrosymmetric system with two or more optical phonon bands. We demonstrate the generation of the photogalvanic energy current using a one-dimensional ion chain with three ions in a unit cell, which predicts the generation of an experimentally observable energy current using available THz-infrared light sources.