English

Quantum heat transfer through an atomic wire

Condensed Matter 2009-10-31 v1

Abstract

We studied the phononic heat transfer through an atomic dielectric wire with both infinite and finite lengths by using a model Hamiltonian approach. At low temperature under ballistic transport, the thermal conductance contributed by each phonon branch of a uniform and harmonic chain cannot exceed the well-known value which depends linearly on temperature but is material independent. We predict that this ballistic thermal conductance will exhibit stepwise behavior as a function of temperature. By performing numerical calculations on a more realistic system, where a small atomic chain is placed between two reservoirs, we also found resonance modes, which should also lead to the stepwise behavior in the thermal conductance.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9908204,
  title  = {Quantum heat transfer through an atomic wire},
  author = {A. Buldum and S. Ciraci and C. Y. Fong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9908204},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

14 pages, 2 separate figures