Nonequilibrium electron and phonon transport in heterostructures for energy conversion

Abstract

We establish the first unified model dealing with the transport of electron and phonon in double heterojunction structures with the coexistence of three nonequilibrium processes: (1) nonequilibrium among electrons, (2) nonequilibrium among phonons, and (3) nonequilibrium between electrons and phonons. Using this model, we investigate the energy conversion efficiency based on concurrent thermoelectric and thermionic effects on electrons and size effects on electrons and phonons. It is found that heterostructures can have an equivalent figure of merit higher than the corresponding bulk materials.