Using Activated Transport in Parallel Nanowires for Energy Harvesting and Hot Spot Cooling

Riccardo Bosisio (1) , Cosimo Gorini (1) , Geneviève Fleury (1) , Jean-Louis Pichard (1)

1 SPEC - UMR3680 - Service de physique de l'état condensé

We study the thermoelectric effects in arrays of disordered nanowires in parallel, at temperatures where charge transport between localized states is thermally assisted by phonons. We obtain large power factors and electrical figures of merit, when the chemical potential probes the band edges of the nanowires, the large thermopowers self-averaging while the small electrical conductances add. The role of the parasitic phonon heat transport is estimated. We also show that phonon absorption and emission occur at opposite ends of the array in band-edge transport, a phenomenon which could be exploited for cooling hot spots in electronic circuits.

Mots clés: thermoelectricity; variable range hopping; activated transport; hot spot cooling; semiconductor nanowire array

Domaines: Systèmes mésoscopiques et effet Hall quantique [cond-mat.mes-hall]

Riccardo Bosisio, Cosimo Gorini, Geneviève Fleury, Jean-Louis Pichard. Using Activated Transport in Parallel Nanowires for Energy Harvesting and Hot Spot Cooling. 2014. ⟨hal-01051644v1⟩