Vendredi 05 juillet 2013 à 16h35
Auditoire Stueckelberg, Ecole de Physique

Magnetic-field asymmetries of thermoelectric transport: Linear response and beyond

David Sanchez, University of the Balearic Islands, Spain

We discuss magnetic-field asymmetries that arise in the thermopower (Seebeck coefficient) of mesoscopic conductors. It is important to distinguish between asymmetries of the thermopower when the conductor is close to equilibrium (linear response) and when the system exceeds the linear response regime. In the former case, the asymmetry arises due to inelastic scattering and vanishes in the zero temperature limit. In the latter, the asymmetry survives in the purely elastic scattering case. Our results are relevant in view of recent experiments that observe a configuration-dependent magnetid-field asymmetry for sufficiently strong thermal differences.