Reinventing the Mott relation for interacting systems: Thermopower and Conductance are related through entropy


  Yaakov Kleeorin [1]  ,  Yigal Meir [1,2]  
[1] Physics Department, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
[2] The Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

In recent years thermopower has begun taking its rightful place as a powerful probe of the underlying model in nanoscopic systems. In this project we were able to relate two transport phenomenon (thermopower and conductance) through an internal value (entropy) in a way that transforms the intuition of thermoelectricity in interacting nanoscopic systems. The usual "Mott relation" between the two transport values is accompanied by a new, sometimes dominant, term which depends directly on entropy (or degeneracy). This allows for probing of the physical system structure using simple transport measurements. This method was already applied to a recent experiment, with unanticiapted thermopower measurements, and was able to provide an explanation to the findings.