Abstract
We study the effects of elastic and inelastic scattering on the thermoelectric transport properties of molecular systems. These systems can exhibit high thermopower due to resonant transmission through molecular orbitals. We focus on systems which exhibit suppressed conductance near transmission antiresonances due to quantum interference. For coherent electronic transport, these antiresonances also lead to very high thermopower. We find that elastic and inelastic scattering reduces the thermopower and that this reduction is more severe for larger molecules and for molecules which are more weakly coupled to the leads.
- Received 2 August 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.86.155452
©2012 American Physical Society