Increasing Thermoelectric Efficiency: A Dynamical Systems Approach

Giulio Casati, Carlos Mejía-Monasterio, and Tomaž Prosen
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 016601 – Published 2 July 2008

Abstract

Inspired by the kinetic theory of ergodic gases and chaotic billiards, we propose a simple microscopic mechanism for the increase of thermoelectric efficiency. We consider the cross transport of particles and energy in open classical ergodic billiards. We show that, in the linear response regime, where we find exact expressions for all transport coefficients, the thermoelectric efficiency of ideal ergodic gases can approach the Carnot efficiency for sufficiently complex charge carrier molecules. Our results are clearly demonstrated with a simple numerical simulation of a Lorentz gas of particles with internal rotational degrees of freedom.

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  • Received 27 February 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.016601

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Giulio Casati1,2, Carlos Mejía-Monasterio3, and Tomaž Prosen4

  • 1Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Como, Italy
  • 2CNR-INFM and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano, Milan, Italy
  • 3Département de Physique Théorique, Université de Genève, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 4Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 1 — 4 July 2008

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