A thermoelectric heat engine with ultracold atoms

Understand

Thermoelectric effects, such as the generation of a particle current by a temperature gradient, have their origin in a reversible coupling between heat and particle flows.

• These effects are fundamental probes for materials and have applications to cooling and power generation.
• Here we demonstrate thermoelectricity in a fermionic cold atoms channel, ballistic or diffusive, connected to two reservoirs.
• We show that the magnitude of the effect and the efficiency of energy conversion can be optimized by controlling the geometry or disorder strength.