We study three-terminal thermoelectric transport in a two-dimensional Quantum Point Contact (QPC) connected to left and right electronic reservoirs, as well as a third one represented by a scanning probe tip. The latter acts as a voltage probe exchanging heat with the system but no charges on average. The thermoelectric coefficients are calculated numerically within the Landauer-B\"uttiker formalism in the low-temperature and linear response regimes. We find tip-induced oscillations of the local and non-local thermopowers and study their dependence on the QPC opening. If the latter is tuned on a conductance plateau, the system behaves as a perfect thermoelectric diode: for some tip positions the charge current through the QPC, driven by a local Seebeck effect, can flow in one direction only.
@article{arxiv.2106.03908,
title = {Scanning probe-induced thermoelectrics in a quantum point contact},
author = {Geneviève Fleury and Cosimo Gorini and Rafael Sánchez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.03908},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
5+ pages. Includes supplementary material (another 4 pages). Accepted version