Optimal thermoelectric figure of merit of a molecular junction

By Padraig Murphy, S. Mukerjee, J. Moore. 2008

148 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We show that a molecular junction can give large values of the thermoelectric figure of merit $ZT$, and so it could be used as a solid-state energy-conversion device that operates close to the Carnot efficiency. The mechanism is similar to the Mahan-Sofo model for bulk thermoelectrics\char22{}the Lorenz number goes to zero violating the Wiedemann-Franz law while the thermopower remains nonzero. The molecular state through which charge is transported must be weakly coupled to the leads, and the energy level of the state must be of order ${k}_{B}T$ away from the Fermi energy of the leads. In practice, the figure of merit is limited by the phonon thermal conductance; we show that the largest possible $ZT\ensuremath{\sim}{({\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{G}}_{\text{th}}^{\text{ph}})}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$, where ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{G}}_{\text{th}}^{\text{ph}}$ is the phonon thermal conductance divided by the thermal conductance quantum.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c899eb2cb8e7121be45e8354b92644951d7964e9

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

  1. Giulio Casati
  2. Keiji Saito
  3. Giuliano Benenti
  4. Robert S. Whitney

In Materials Chemistry

  1. Giulio Casati
  2. Keiji Saito
  3. Giuliano Benenti
  4. Robert S. Whitney

Citations in the corpus