Optimal efficiency and power, and their trade-off in three-terminal quantum thermoelectric engines with two output electric currents

Lu, Jincheng; Liu, Yefeng; Wang, Rongqian; Wang, Chen; Jiang, Jianhua

doi:10.1103/physrevb.100.115438

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 69 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In the linear-response regime, the calculation of threeterminal heat engine performance with multiple electric currents and one heat current has been obtained in Ref. [58]. The maximum energy efficiency can be expressed as…”

Section: Cooperative Thermoelectric Effects: a Geometric Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy cooperation in quantum thermoelectric systems with multiple electric currents*

Liu¹,

Lu²,

Wang³

et al. 2020

Chinese Phys. B

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The energy efficiency and power of a quantum thermoelectric system with multiple electric currents and only one heat currents are studied. The system is connected to the hot heat bath with one terminal but the cold bath with multiple terminals or vice versal. We find that the cooperative effects can be a potentially useful tool in improving the energy efficiency and output power in multi-terminal mesoscopic thermoelectric systems. As an example, we show that the cooperation between the two thermoelectric effects in three-terminal thermoelectric systems leads to markedly improved performance of heat engine within the linear response regime using the Landauer-Bütiker formalism. Such improvement also emerge in four-terminal thermoelectric heat engines with three output electric currents. Cooperative effects in these multi-terminal thermoelectric systems can significantly enlarge the physical parameter region with high efficiency and power. For refrigeration, we find that the energy efficiency can also be substantially improved if multi-terminal configurations are considered, suggesting a useful scheme toward electronic cooling. Our study illustrates cooperative effects as a convenient approach toward high-performance thermoelectric energy conversion in multi-terminal mesoscopic systems.

show abstract

Section: Cooperative Thermoelectric Effects: a Geometric Interpretationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy cooperation in quantum thermoelectric systems with multiple electric currents*

Liu¹,

Lu²,

Wang³

et al. 2020

Chinese Phys. B

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…[58,60,110]) have addressed definitions of efficiencies. The correct choice of definition is difficult in situations where there are either multiple inputs (e.g., multiple heat sources) [63,64] or multiple outputs (a combination of power production and cooling [65], multiple power outputs [30,66,67]), or more general hybrid thermal machines [111]. We suspect that the free energy efficiency used in the present work could be adapted to be a good measure of efficiencies in such situations as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multiterminal steady-state heat engines are thought to be useful for applications because (i) they can separate the working substance and resource, thereby limiting heating of the working substance [57][58][59][60][61][62], and (ii) they can profit from having multiple input resources [63,64] and generating multiple outputs [30,[65][66][67]. In the system we analyze here, the situation is even better: No heat transport is required and work production can even be accompanied by a cooling of the working substance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying nonequilibrium thermodynamic operations in a multiterminal mesoscopic system

Hajiloo¹,

Sánchez²,

Whitney³

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. B

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We investigate a multiterminal mesoscopic conductor in the quantum Hall regime, subject to temperature and voltage biases. The device can be considered as a nonequilibrium resource acting on a working substance. We previously showed that cooling and power production can occur in the absence of energy and particle currents from a nonequilibrium resource (calling this an N-demon). Here we allow energy or particle currents from the nonequilibrium resource and find that the device seemingly operates at a better efficiency than a Carnot engine. To overcome this problem, we define free-energy efficiencies which incorporate the fact that a nonequilibrium resource is consumed in addition to heat or power. These efficiencies are well behaved for equilibrium and nonequilibrium resources and have an upper bound imposed by the laws of thermodynamics. We optimize power production and cooling in experimentally relevant parameter regimes.

show abstract

“…We set T S < T D and aim at cooling the source (i.e., J S > 0) using J q through the mesoscopic heat thermal current effect. The coefficient of performance (COP) for the cooling by transverse current effect in our four-terminal system is given by 48,49…”

Section: Conventional and Unconventional Thermoelectric Energy Conver...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unconventional four-terminal thermoelectric transport due to inelastic transport: cooling by transverse current, transverse thermoelectric effect and Maxwell demon

Jiang,

Lu,

Imry

2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We show that in mesoscopic four-terminal thermoelectric devices with two electrodes (the source and the drain) and two heat baths, inelastic scattering processes can lead to unconventional thermoelectric transport. The source (or the drain) can be cooled by passing a thermal current between the two heat baths, with no net heat exchange between the heat baths and the electrodes. This effect, termed as cooling by heat current, is a mesoscopic heat drag effect. In addition, there is a transverse thermoelectric effect where electrical current and power can be generated by a transverse temperature bias (i.e., the temperature bias between the two heat baths). This transverse thermoelectric effect, originates from inelastic scattering processes, may have advantages for improved figures of merit and power factor due to spatial separation of charge and heat transport. We study the Onsager current-affinity relations, the linear-response transport properties, and the transverse thermoelectric figure of merit of the four-terminal thermoelectric devices for various system parameters. In addition, we investigate the efficiency and power of the cooling by transverse current effect in both linear and nonlinear transport regimes. We also demonstrate that by exploiting the inelastic transport in the quantum-dot four-terminal systems, a type of Maxwell's demon can be realized using nonequilibrium heat baths.

show abstract

Optimal efficiency and power, and their trade-off in three-terminal quantum thermoelectric engines with two output electric currents

Cited by 17 publications

References 69 publications

Energy cooperation in quantum thermoelectric systems with multiple electric currents*

Energy cooperation in quantum thermoelectric systems with multiple electric currents*

Quantifying nonequilibrium thermodynamic operations in a multiterminal mesoscopic system

Unconventional four-terminal thermoelectric transport due to inelastic transport: cooling by transverse current, transverse thermoelectric effect and Maxwell demon

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About