Quantum-coupled single-electron thermal to electric conversion scheme

Thumbnail Image
Download
Name

238572886-MIT.pdf

Description
Full printable version
Size

12.67 MB

Format

Adobe PDF

Checksum (MD5)

199244ae66dd4c9960fe715901547e41

Author(s)
Wu, Dennis M. (Dennis Meng-Jiao)
Advisor(s)
Peter L. Hagelstein.
Date Issued
2008
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
A new thermal to electric conversion scheme based on an excitation transfer and tunneling mechanism is studied theoretically. Coulomb coupling dominates when the hot side and the cold side are very close. Two important concepts went into the device scheme: (1) Coulomb coupling, to try to increase throughput power (which is not subject to blackbody limit), and (2) a quantum dot implementation, to restrict number of states, to try to increase efficiency. Modeling efforts from Bloch equations, brute force numerical simulations, and the secular equations partitioning method are discussed. A hot-side quantum dot design of the device is considered. Alternative implementation where the hot-side is a plain sheet of metal or aluminum oxide is analyzed. We found that the model power/area is higher than the blackbody limit, and the predicted conversion efficiency is very high.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 236-242).
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2008.
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
M.I.T. theses are protected by
copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Persistent DSpace Link
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibilityContact us
Notify us about copyright concerns.