Scattering theory of thermal and bipolar thermoelectric diodes

TL;DR

This paper explores how electron interactions and device asymmetry can produce nonreciprocal thermal and thermoelectric responses, proposing resonant tunneling structures as bipolar diodes exhibiting antireciprocity.

Contribution

It identifies mechanisms for nonreciprocal thermoelectric effects and proposes device configurations that achieve bipolar diodes with antireciprocal behavior.

Findings

Resonant tunneling samples can exploit electron-electron interactions for rectification.

Configurations can act as bipolar thermoelectric diodes with antireciprocity.

Device asymmetry and interactions are key to nonreciprocal thermal responses.

Abstract

We investigate the minimal requirements that induce a nonreciprocal response to temperature differences in a mesoscopic electronic conductor. We identify two distinct mechanisms involved in electron-electron interactions, namely inelastic scattering and screening, that locally affect the internal properties of the device, leading to thermal and thermoelectric rectification effects in the absence of inversion symmetry. We propose resonant tunneling samples to efficiently exploit these effects, and find configurations acting as bipolar thermoelectric diodes whose current flows in the same direction irrespective of the sign of the temperature difference, a case of antireciprocity.