English

Electron tunneling induced thermoelectric effects

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2024-09-10 v2

Abstract

We introduce a direct (Seebeck) and inverse (Peltier) thermoelectric effect induced by electron tunneling between closely separated conducting films. When a transverse temperature gradient is applied along one of two films, a bias voltage is induced in the second thanks to the heat transfer mediated by electrons tunneling through the separation gap. We highlight a non trivial behavior for this Seebeck effect with respect to geometric characteristics of interacting films. Conversely, when an electric current passes through one of two films a strong thermal power can be removed from or inserted in the second film through an induced Peltier effect. In particular we highlight conditions where the induced Seebeck and Peltier coefficients are larger than in the bulk. These induced thermoelectric effects could find broad applications in the fields of energy conversion and cooling at nanoscale.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.13017,
  title  = {Electron tunneling induced thermoelectric effects},
  author = {Mauricio Gómez Viloria and Riccardo Messina and Philippe Ben-Abdallah},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.13017},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:57:32.530Z