Figure 1
From: Staircase Quantum Dots Configuration in Nanowires for Optimized Thermoelectric Power
(a) Schematic of the conventional thermoelectric energy harvester that converts heat to electricity. (b) Unfolded geometry of the thermoelectric energy harvester. (c) Working principle of a solar cell, a three-terminal device akin to inelastic (i.e., photon absorbing) processes. (d) Schematic of staircase quantum-dots thermoelectric harvester. Heat from hot phonon bath is exploited to generate electricity via phonon-assisted electron hopping in a chain of quantum-dots with staircase energy configuration. The energy diagram for this device is illustrated as well. Each energy step is dE. For a chain of N quantum-dots the total energy difference is ΔE = (N − 1)dE.
