Related papers: Concept study for a high-efficiency nanowire-based…
Macroscopic-scale nanostructures, situated at the interface of nanostructures and bulk materials, hold significant promise in the realm of thermoelectric materials. Nanostructuring presents a compelling avenue for enhancing material…
Significant progress has been made in recent studies of thermal and thermoelectric transport phenomena in nanostructures and low-dimensional systems. This article reviews several intriguing quantum and classical size effects on thermal and…
A novel photonic thermal diode concept operating in the near field and capitalizing on the temperature-dependence of coupled surface polariton modes in nanostructures is proposed. The diode concept utilizes terminals made of the same…
By converting waste heat into electricity through the thermoelectric power of solids without producing greenhouse gas emissions, thermoelectric generators could be an important part of the solution to today's energy challenge. There has…
Molecular junctions and similar devices described by an energy dependent transmission coefficient can have a high linear response thermoelectric figure of merit. Since such devices are inherently non-linear, the full thermodynamic…
We review experimental and theoretical results on thermal transport in semiconductor nanostructures (multilayer thin films, core/shell and segmented nanowires), single- and few-layer graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, molybdenum disulfide…
The low thermal conductivity of silicon nanostructures, with respect to bulk silicon, opens excellent possibilities for thermoelectric applications because it will enable the use of silicon for the high efficient direct conversion of wasted…
The field of thermoelectric materials has undergone a revolutionary transformation over the last couple of decades as a result of the ability to nanostructure and synthesize myriads of materials and their alloys. The ZT figure of merit,…
The transfer of heat between electrons and phonons plays a key role for thermal management in future nanowire-based devices, but only a few experimental measurements of electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling in nanowires are available. Here, we…
Dimensional dependence of thermal conductance at low temperatures in nanowires is studied using the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method. Our calculation shows a smooth dimensional crossover of thermal conductance in nanowire from…
Machines are only Carnot efficient if they are reversible, but then their power output is vanishingly small. Here we ask, what is the maximum efficiency of an irreversible device with finite power output? We use a nonlinear scattering…
Photons typically do not contribute to thermal transport within a solid due to their low energy density and tendency to be quickly absorbed. We propose a practical material system - infrared plasmonic resonators embedded in a semiconductor…
The efficiency and cooling power of a two-terminal thermoelectric refrigerator are analyzed near the limit of vanishing dissipation (ideal system), where the optimal efficiency is the Carnot one, but the cooling power then unfortunately…
We consider the nonlinear scattering theory for three-terminal thermoelectric devices, used for power generation or refrigeration. Such systems are quantum phase-coherent versions of a thermocouple, and the theory applies to systems in…
There is currently substantial effort being invested into creating efficient thermoelectric nanowires based on topological insulator chalcogenide-type materials. A key premise of these efforts is the assumption that the generally good…
The Carnot cycle imposes a fundamental upper limit to the efficiency of a macroscopic motor operating between two thermal baths. However, this bound needs to be reinterpreted at microscopic scales, where molecular bio-motors and some…
Classically, the power generated by an ideal thermal machine cannot be larger than the Carnot limit. This profound result is rooted in the second law of thermodynamics. A hot question is whether this bound is still valid for microengines…
The Nernst effect, a transverse thermoelectric phenomenon, has attracted significant attention for its potential in energy conversion, thermoelectrics, and spintronics. However, achieving high performance and versatility at low temperatures…
Hot Carrier solar cells have long been recognized as an attractive contender in the search for high efficiency photovoltaic devices but their fabrication requires solution of two important material challenges: finding materials with…
We study arrays of parallel doped semiconductor nanowires in a temperature range where the electrons propagate through the nanowires by phonon assisted hops between localized states. By solving the Random Resistor Network problem, we…