Abstract
As a fundamental requisite for thermotronics, controlling heat flow has been a longstanding quest in solid state physics. Recently, there has been a lot of interest in nanoscale hybrid systems as possible candidates for thermal devices. In this context, we study the heat current in the simplest hybrid device of a two level system weakly coupled to two heat baths. We use the reduced density matrix approach together with a simple Born-Markov approximation to calculate the heat current in the steady state. We consider different kinds of reservoirs and show that the nature of the reservoir plays a very important role in determining the thermal characteristics of the device. In particular, we investigate the effectiveness of a conventional superconductor as a reservoir with regard to manipulating the heat current. In the emergent temperature characteristics, we find that superconductivity in the reservoirs leads to enhanced thermal currents and that the superconducting phase transition is clearly visible in the heat current. We observe negative differential thermal conductance and a pronounced rectification of the heat current, making this a good building block for a quantum thermal diode.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
C. Van den Broeck, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 190602 (2005)
D. Venturelli, R. Fazio, V. Giovannetti, Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 256801 (2013)
N.A. Roberts, D.G. Walker, Int. J. Thermal Sci. 50, 648 (2011)
L. Wang, B. Li, Phys. World 21, 27 (2008)
M. Terraneo, M. Peyrard, G. Casati, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 094302 (2002)
B. Li, L. Wang, G. Casati, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 184301 (2004)
C.W. Chang, D. Okawa, A. Majumdar, A. Zettl, Science 314, 1121 (2006)
R. Scheibner, M. König, D. Reuter, A.A. Wieck, C. Gould, H. Buhmann, L.W. Molenkamp, New J. Phys. 10, 083016 (2008)
O.P. Saira, M. Meschke, F. Giazotto, A.M. Savin, M. Möttönen, J.P. Pekola, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 027203 (2007)
I. Sinaysky, F. Petruccione, D. Burgarth, Phys. Rev. A 78, 062301 (2008)
L. Quiroga, F.J. Rodríguez, M.E. Ramirez, R. París, Phys. Rev. A 75, 032308 (2007)
T. Prosen, I. Pižorn, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 105701 (2008)
L.A. Wu, C.X. Yu, D. Segal, Phys. Rev. E 80, 041103 (2009)
L.A. Wu, D. Segal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 095503 (2009)
D. Segal, A. Nitzan, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 194704 (2005)
L.A. Wu, D. Segal, J. Phys. A 42, 025302 (2009)
H.P. Breuer, F. Petruccione, The Theory of Open Quantum Systems (Oxford University Press, 2007)
U. Weiss, Quantum Dissipative Systems (World Scientific Publishing Company, 2008)
S. Camalet, R. Chitra, Phys. Rev. B 75, 094434 (2007)
J. Restrepo, S. Camalet, R. Chitra, Europhys. Lett. 101, 50005 (2013)
M. Tinkham, Introduction to Superconductivity (McGraw-Hill, 1996)
H.P. Breuer, D. Burgarth, F. Petruccione, Phys. Rev. B 70, 045323 (2004)
J. Restrepo, R. Chitra, S. Camalet, E. Dupont, Phys. Rev. B 84, 245109 (2011)
H. Wichterich, M.J. Henrich, H.P. Breuer, J. Gemmer, M. Michel, Phys. Rev. E 76, 031115 (2007)
L.A. Wu, D. Segal, Phys. Rev. E 83, 051114 (2011)
B. Li, L. Wang, G. Casati, Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 143501 (2006)
J. Hu, Y. Wang, A. Vallabhaneni, X. Ruan, Y.P. Chen, Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 113101 (2011)
T. Ruokola, T. Ojanen, A.P. Jauho, Phys. Rev. B 79, 144306 (2009)
D.M.T. Kuo, Y.C. Chang, Phys. Rev. B 81, 205321 (2010)
J. Restrepo, Ph.D. thesis, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 2011
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Oettinger, D., Chitra, R. & Restrepo, J. Heat current characteristics in nanojunctions with superconducting baths. Eur. Phys. J. B 87, 224 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50310-3
Received:
Revised:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2014-50310-3