How to measure the entropy of a mesoscopic system via thermoelectric transport

Yaakov Kleeorin (), Holger Thierschmann, Hartmut Buhmann, Antoine Georges, Laurens W. Molenkamp and Yigal Meir ()
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Yaakov Kleeorin: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Holger Thierschmann: Delft University of Technology
Hartmut Buhmann: Universität Würzburg
Antoine Georges: Universite Paris-Saclay
Laurens W. Molenkamp: Universität Würzburg
Yigal Meir: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Entropy is a fundamental thermodynamic quantity indicative of the accessible degrees of freedom in a system. While it has been suggested that the entropy of a mesoscopic system can yield nontrivial information on emergence of exotic states, its measurement in such small electron-number system is a daunting task. Here we propose a method to extract the entropy of a Coulomb-blockaded mesoscopic system from transport measurements. We prove analytically and demonstrate numerically the applicability of the method to such a mesoscopic system of arbitrary spectrum and degeneracies. We then apply our procedure to measurements of thermoelectric response of a single quantum dot, and demonstrate how it can be used to deduce the entropy change across Coulomb-blockade valleys, resolving, along the way, a long-standing puzzle of the experimentally observed finite thermoelectric response at the apparent particle-hole symmetric point.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13630-3

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