Quantum-coupled single-electron thermal to electric conversion scheme

A new thermal to electric conversion scheme based on an excitation transfer and tunneling mechanism is studied theoretically. Coulomb coupling dominates when the hot side and the cold side are very close. Two important concepts went into the device scheme: (1) Coulomb coupling, to try to increase throughput power (which is not subject to blackbody limit), and (2) a quantum dot implementation, to restrict number of states, to try to increase efficiency. Modeling efforts from Bloch equations, brute force numerical simulations, and the secular equations partitioning method are discussed. A hot-side quantum dot design of the device is considered. Alternative implementation where the hot-side is a plain sheet of metal or aluminum oxide is analyzed. We found that the model power/area is higher than the blackbody limit, and the predicted conversion efficiency is very high.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Wu, Dennis M. (Dennis Meng-Jiao)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Peter L. Hagelstein.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/42421

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/42421