We propose a mechanism for nanoscale energy conversion, an electric voltage induced by a temperature gradient in a junction composed of the same material having exactly the same geometric sizes, but distinct shapes. The proposed effect appears as a result of only temperature and shape difference, hence it is called thermoshape effect. For GaAs quantum confined semiconductor nanostructures, we first introduce the existence of quantum shape effects on thermoelectric transport coefficients at ballistic regime. We show that the shape alone enters as a control parameter on transport properties of confined nanostructures. The thermoshape voltage is then calculated by using the Landauer formalism. Our calculations show that the thermoshape voltage has a constant value in the order of mV K −1 for the variation of chemical potential in non-degenerate regime and it decreases rapidly after entering weakly degenerate regime where it oscillates around zero within plus/minus 10 µ...

中文翻译：

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具有纳米结构的能量收集的热成型效应

我们提出了一种用于纳米级能量转换的机制，这种电压由结中的温度梯度感应，该结由具有完全相同的几何尺寸但形状不同的相同材料组成。所提出的效果仅是温度和形状差异的结果，因此称为热变形效果。对于GaAs量子受限半导体纳米结构，我们首先介绍了在弹道状态下量子形状效应对热电传输系数的影响。我们表明，单独的形状作为约束纳米结构的传输特性的控制参数。然后通过使用Landauer形式主义来计算热定形电压。