Time-Dependent Thermal Transport Theory

Robert Biele, Roberto D’Agosta, and Angel Rubio
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 056801 – Published 28 July 2015

Abstract

Understanding thermal transport in nanoscale systems presents important challenges to both theory and experiment. In particular, the concept of local temperature at the nanoscale appears difficult to justify. Here, we propose a theoretical approach where we replace the temperature gradient with controllable external blackbody radiations. The theory recovers known physical results, for example, the linear relation between the thermal current and the temperature difference of two blackbodies. Furthermore, our theory is not limited to the linear regime and goes beyond accounting for nonlinear effects and transient phenomena. Since the present theory is general and can be adapted to describe both electron and phonon dynamics, it provides a first step toward a unified formalism for investigating thermal and electronic transport.

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  • Received 18 December 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.056801

© 2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Robert Biele1,*, Roberto D’Agosta1,2,†, and Angel Rubio1,3,‡

  • 1Nano-Bio Spectroscopy Group and European Theoretical Spectroscopy Facility (ETSF), Universidad del País Vasco, E-20018 San Sebastián, Spain
  • 2IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, E-48013 Bilbao, Spain
  • 3Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, Hamburg 22761, Germany

  • *r.biele02@gmail.com
  • roberto.dagosta@ehu.es
  • angel.rubio@ehu.es

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Issue

Vol. 115, Iss. 5 — 31 July 2015

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