How to measure the entropy of a mesoscopic system via thermoelectric transport
Entropy is a fundamental thermodynamic quantity indicative of the accessible degrees of freedom in a system. While it has been suggested that the entropy of a mesoscopic system can yield nontrivial information on emergence of exotic states, its measurement in such small electron-number system is a d...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Nature communications 2019-12, Vol.10 (1), p.5801-8, Article 5801 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | Entropy is a fundamental thermodynamic quantity indicative of the accessible degrees of freedom in a system. While it has been suggested that the entropy of a mesoscopic system can yield nontrivial information on emergence of exotic states, its measurement in such small electron-number system is a daunting task. Here we propose a method to extract the entropy of a Coulomb-blockaded mesoscopic system from transport measurements. We prove analytically and demonstrate numerically the applicability of the method to such a mesoscopic system of arbitrary spectrum and degeneracies. We then apply our procedure to measurements of thermoelectric response of a single quantum dot, and demonstrate how it can be used to deduce the entropy change across Coulomb-blockade valleys, resolving, along the way, a long-standing puzzle of the experimentally observed finite thermoelectric response at the apparent particle-hole symmetric point.
Advances in nanotechnology make it possible to probe traditionally macroscopic notions of thermodynamics at the mesoscopic scale. Here the authors propose a method that can determine the entropy of a quantum dot system from transport measurements. |
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ISSN: | 2041-1723 2041-1723 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-019-13630-3 |