https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/s10051-022-00470-2
Regular Article - Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
A three-terminal heat engine based on resonant-tunneling multi-level quantum dots
Department of Physics, Nanchang University, 330031, Nanchang, People’s Republic of China
Received:
1
September
2022
Accepted:
6
December
2022
Published online:
31
December
2022
A three-terminal heat engine based on resonant-tunneling multi-level quantum dots is proposed. With the help of Landauer formula, the general expressions for the charge and heat currents, the power output and efficiency are derived. In the linear response regime an explicit analytic expressions for the charge and heat currents, the maximum power output and the corresponding efficiency is presented. Next, the performance characteristic and optimal performance of the heat engine is investigated in the nonlinear response regime by numerical calculation. Finally, the influence of the main parameters, including the asymmetry factor, the energy-level spacing, the energy difference, the number of discrete energy levels, the bias voltage, and the temperature difference on the optimal performance of the heat engine is analyzed in detail. By choosing appropriate parameters one can obtain the maximum power output and the corresponding efficiency at maximum output power.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
