Nonlinear Seebeck effect of SU(N) Kondo impurity

Abstract

We develop a theoretical framework to study the influences of coupling asymmetry on the thermoelectrics of a strongly coupled SU($N$) Kondo impurity based on a local Fermi liquid theory. Applying non-equilibrium Keldysh formalism, we investigate charge current driven by the voltage bias and temperature gradient in the strong coupling regime of an asymmetrically coupled SU($N$) quantum impurity. The thermoelectric characterizations are made via non-linear Seebeck effects. We demonstrate that the beyond particle-hole (PH) symmetric SU($N$) Kondo variants are highly desirable with respect to the corresponding PH symmetric setups in order to have significantly improved thermoelectric performance. The greatly enhanced Seebeck coefficients by tailoring the coupling asymmetry of beyond PH symmetric SU($N$) Kondo effects are explored. Apart from presenting the analytical expressions of asymmetry dependent transport coefficients for general SU($N$) Kondo effects, we make a close connection of our findings with the experimentally studied SU(2) and SU(4) Kondo effects in quantum dot nano structures. Seebeck effects associated with the theoretically proposed SU(3) Kondo effects are discussed in detail.