Generalized drift-diffusion for microscopic thermoelectricity
Name
550579912-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
39.19 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ef60afa8f15d4e30e2127b825a386264
Author(s)
Santhanam, Parthiban
Advisor(s)
Rajeev J. Ram.
Date Issued
2009
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Although thermoelectric elements increasingly incorporate nano-scale features in similar material systems as other micro-electronic devices, the former are described in the language of irreversible thermodynamics while devices such as heterojunction bipolar transistors and semiconductor lasers are often described with the drift-diffusion equations. We present a microscopic description of the thermoelectric effects using a generalization of the common drift-diffusion formulation of semi-classical transport. We then replicate these basic results in a commerical device simulation package to explore Peltier cooling at a basic p-n junction. This framework should enable the design of spatially-inhomogenenous thermoelectric elements and internally-cooled micro-electronic devices.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-193).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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