Quantum dots are an important model system for thermoelectric phenomena, and may be used to enhance the thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency in functional materials. It is therefore important to obtain a detailed understanding of a quantu
m-dots thermopower as a function of the Fermi energy. However, so far it has proven difficult to take effects of co-tunnelling into account in the interpretation of experimental data. Here we show that a single-electron tunnelling model, using knowledge of the dots electrical conductance which in fact includes all-order co-tunneling effects, predicts the thermopower of quantum dots as a function of the relevant energy scales, in very good agreement with experiment.
When a quantum dot is subjected to a thermal gradient, the temperature of electrons entering the dot can be determined from the dots thermocurrent if the conductance spectrum and background temperature are known. We demonstrate this technique by meas
uring the temperature difference across a 15 nm quantum dot embedded in a nanowire. This technique can be used when the dots energy states are separated by many kT and will enable future quantitative investigations of electron-phonon interaction, nonlinear thermoelectric effects, and the effciency of thermoelectric energy conversion in quantum dots.
