Designer thermal switches: the effect of the contact material on instantaneous thermoelectric transport through a strongly interacting quantum dot

Abstract

We investigate the effect of contact material on the instantaneous thermoelectric response of a quantum dot pushed suddenly into the Kondo regime via a gate voltage using time dependent non-crossing approximation and linear response Onsager relations. We utilize graphene and metal contacts for this purpose. Instantaneous thermopower displays sinusoidal oscillations whose frequency is proportional to the energy separation between the van Hove singularity in the contact density of states and the Fermi level for both cases, regardless of the asymmetry factor at the onset of the Kondo timescale. The amplitude of the oscillations increases with decreasing temperature, saturating around the Kondo temperature. We also calculate the instantaneous figure of merit and show that the oscillations taking place at temperatures above the Kondo temperature are enhanced more than the ones occurring at lower temperatures due to the violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law. Graphene emerges as a more promising electrode candidate than ordinary metals in single electron devices since it can minimize these oscillations.