Powerful energy harvester based on resonant-tunneling quantum wells

We analyze a heat engine based on a hot cavity connected via quantum wells to electronic reservoirs. We discuss the output power as well as the efficiency both in the linear and nonlinear regime. We find that the device delivers a large power of about 0.18 W cm ^−2 for a temperature difference of 1 ...

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書目詳細資料
Main Authors: Björn Sothmann, Rafael Sánchez, Andrew N Jordan, Markus Büttiker
格式: Article
語言:English
出版: IOP Publishing 2013-01-01
叢編:New Journal of Physics
在線閱讀:https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/15/9/095021
實物特徵
總結:We analyze a heat engine based on a hot cavity connected via quantum wells to electronic reservoirs. We discuss the output power as well as the efficiency both in the linear and nonlinear regime. We find that the device delivers a large power of about 0.18 W cm ^−2 for a temperature difference of 1 K, nearly doubling the power that can be extracted from a similar heat engine based on quantum dots. At the same time, the heat engine also has good efficiency albeit reduced from the quantum dot case. Due to the large level spacings that can be achieved in quantum wells, our proposal opens a route toward room-temperature applications of nanoscale heat engines.
ISSN:1367-2630