Thermoelectric efficiency at maximum power in low-dimensional systems
By N. Nakpathomkun, Hongqi Xu, H. Linke. 2010
161 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Low-dimensional electronic systems in thermoelectrics have the potential to achieve high thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency. A key measure of performance is the efficiency when the device is operated under maximum power conditions. Here we study the efficiency at maximum power, in the absence of phonon-mediated heat flow, of three low-dimensional, thermoelectric systems: a zero-dimensional quantum dot with a Lorentzian transmission resonance of finite width, a one-dimensional (1D) ballistic conductor, and a thermionic (TI) power generator formed by a two-dimensional energy barrier. In all three systems, the efficiency at maximum power is independent of temperature, and in each case a careful tuning of relevant energies is required to achieve maximal performance. We find that quantum dots perform relatively poorly under maximum power conditions, with relatively low efficiency and small power throughput. Ideal one-dimensional conductors offer the highest efficiency at maximum power (36% of the Carnot efficiency). Whether 1D or TI systems achieve the larger maximum power output depends on temperature and area filling factor. These results are also discussed in the context of the traditional figure of merit ZT. (Less)
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Materials Chemistry
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/51a5155c6fbe955c8f6f7a7632dd171a2dea222f
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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
In Materials Chemistry
Citations in the corpus
- Fundamental aspects of steady-state conversion of heat to work at the nanoscale (2016, background): “3 Stochastic heat engines II: Two-level heat engine Among low-dimensional electronic systems, the quantum dot has the potential to provide many kinds of thermodynamic engines [140, 141, 194, 475].”