Nonlinear thermovoltage and thermocurrent in quantum dots

Quantum dots are model systems for quantum thermoelectric behavior because of their ability to control and measure the effects of electron-energy filtering and quantum confinement on thermoelectric properties. Interestingly, nonlinear thermoelectric properties of such small systems can modify the efficiency of thermoelectric power conversion. Using quantum dots embedded in semiconductor nanowires, we measure thermovoltage and thermocurrent that are strongly nonlinear in the applied thermal bias. We show that most of the observed nonlinear effects can be understood in terms of a renormalization of the quantum-dot energy levels as a function of applied thermal bias and provide a theoretical m…