Thermoelectric cooling properties of quantum dot superlattice embedded nanowires

Abstract

Low temperature thermoelectric cooling properties of superlattice structured nanowires have been investigated theoretically. A boxcar shape transmission function can be obtained by special choice of the barriers number, their widths and spacing, material composition, and bias voltage. Charge and heat currents have been calculated using the Landauer formalism in the nonlinear response regime. Also we have calculated the rate of cooling, electric power consumption and cooling coefficient of performance (COP) of a thermoelectric cooler using such a transmission function. Our results show that the COP of such a structure remains superb also when operating at a remarkable cooling rate. © 2019 IOP Publishing Ltd.