Aharonov-Bohm-Type Oscillations of Thermopower in a Quantum Dot Ring Geometry

TL;DR

This paper studies flux-dependent thermopower oscillations in a quantum dot ring, revealing strong oscillations influenced by scattering phase, with methods proposed for experimental comparison.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical analysis of thermopower oscillations in quantum dot rings, emphasizing the role of scattering phase and proposing comparison procedures.

Findings

Thermopower oscillates strongly with magnetic flux.

Oscillation amplitude often exceeds background levels.

Dependence on scattering matrix phase is significant.

Abstract

We investigate Aharonov-Bohm-type oscillations of the thermopower of a quantum dot embedded in a ring for the case when the interaction between electrons can be neglected. The thermopower is shown to be strongly flux dependent, and typically the amplitude of oscillations exceeds the background value. It is also shown to be essentially dependent on the phase of the scattering matrix which is determined by the experimental geometry and is not known in the given experiment. Two procedures to compare theory and experiment are proposed.