Towards a dynamical approach to the calculation of the figure of merit of thermoelectric nanoscale devices

摘要

Research on thermoelectrical energy conversion, the reuse of waste heatproduced by some mechanical or chemical processes to generate electricity, hasrecently gained some momentum. The calculation of the electronic parametersentering the figure of merit of this energy conversion, and therefore thediscovery of efficient materials, is usually performed starting from theLandauer's approach to quantum transport coupled with the Onsager's linearresponse theory. As it is well known, that approach suffers of certain seriousdrawbacks. Here, we discuss alternative dynamical methods that can go beyondthe validity of the Landauer's/Onsager's approach for electronic transport.They can be used to validate the predictions of the Landauer's/Onsager'sapproach and to investigate systems for which that approach has shown to beunsatisfactory.