Controlling thermoelectric, heat, and energy currents through a quantum dot in sequential and cotunneling Coulomb-blockade regimes

Abstract

Thermal transport through a Coulomb-blockade quantum dot (QD) coupled to two metallic leads is studied using five different approaches to the master equation in which sequential and coutuneling terms are taken into account. In the presence of intradot Coulomb interactions, a plateau in the thermo-particle, the heat, and the energy currents is seen. The current plateau diminishes at a high thermal bias between the leads. It is shown that the Pauli, the Redfield, the Lindblad-type equation with first order tunneling rates, and first-order von-Neumann master equations give very similar thermal transport indicating the conservation of coherency in the electron transport in sequential tunneling between the QD and leads. In contrast, the thermal transport is suppressed when coutuneling processes are taken into account via a second-order von-Neumann master equation. The consideration of second order effects with respect to the QD-leads coupling brings in a wealth of virtual processes at the contact to each lead. These virtual processes directly weaken the effects of the contribution of the first order direct processes to the overall transport, and introduce important other aspects of the transport, as level broadening, energy shifts, and lifetimes in the time-domain. As a result the current plateau formed via the Coulomb interaction diminishes, when second order and cotunneling processes are considered.