Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 230
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80507-7

Regular Article

Heating and thermoelectric transport in a molecular junction

¹ Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 16200 Prague, Czech Republic
² Institute of Physics, Ernst Moritz Arndt University Greifswald, 17487 Greifswald, Germany

^a e-mail: fehske@physik.uni-greifswald.de

Received: 6 September 2017
Received in final form: 26 September 2017
Published online: 27 November 2017

Abstract

The energy dissipation and heat flows associated with the particle current in a system with a molecular junction are considered. In this connection, we determine the effective temperature of the molecular oscillator that is compatible with the existence of a steady state. The calculations based on the Kadanoff-Baym nonequilibrium Green function formalism are carried out supposing a strong coupling of the dot electrons with the molecular vibrations. Accordingly, the representation given by the Lang-Firsov polaron transformation is used and the dependence of results on the electron–phonon interaction strength is investigated.