A Thermoelectric Heat Engine with Ultracold Atoms

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1242308
• Publication Date: 2013-10-25T06:38:02Z
• Authors: Jean-Philippe Bra...; Charles Grenier; Jakob Meineke; David Stadler; Sebastian Krinner; Corinna Kollath; Tilman Esslinger; Antoine Georges
• Keywords: Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics; Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); 0103 physical sciences; FOS: Physical sciences; Condensed Matter - Quantum Gases; 7. Clean energy; 01 natural sciences

Cold Thermoelectrics

Thermoelectric effects—such as the creation of a voltage drop in response to a thermal gradient (known as the Seebeck effect)—can be used for a number of applications, including converting wasted heat into power. However, especially in solids that exhibit electronic interactions, this type of behavior is not well understood.

Brantut et al.

(p. 713 , published online 24 October; see the Perspective by

Heikkilä

) studied the Seebeck effect in the very controllable setting of cold atomic gases. Two initially identical reservoirs of 6 Li atoms were connected using a quasi–two-dimensional channel, and the particle current after heating one of the reservoirs was measured. The atoms moved from the warmer to the cooler reservoir, the extent of which fit with theoretical predictions as the disorder in the channel and its geometry were varied.