Fluctuations are strong in mesoscopic systems and have to be taken
into account for the description of transport. We show that they can
even be used as a resource for the operation of a system as a device.
We use the physics of single-electron tunneling to propose a bipartite
device [1,2] working as a thermal transistor [3]. Charge and heat
currents in a two terminal conductor can be gated by thermal
fluctuations from a third terminal to which it is capacitively
coupled. The gate system can act as a switch that injects neither
charge nor energy into the conductor hence achieving huge
amplification factors. Non-thermal properties of the tunneling
electrons can be exploited to operate the device with no energy
consumption.
The strong Coulomb interactions typical of quantum dots can
furthermore induce rectification effects that lead to thermal diodes
in systems with broken mirror symmetry [4].
[1] R. Sánchez, M. Büttiker, Optimal energy quanta to current conversion,
Phys. Rev. B 83, 085428 (2011).
[2] H. Thierschmann et al., Three-terminal energy harvester with coupled quantum dots,
Nature Nanotech. 10, 854 (2015).
[3] R. Sánchez, H. Thierschmann, L. W. Molenkamp,
Phys. Rev. B 95, 241401 (2017),
New J. Phys. 19, 113040 (2017).
[4] A. Marcos-Vicioso, C. López-Jurado, M. Ruiz-Garcia, R. Sánchez,
arXiv:1803.04073.