Thermoelectric properties of a weakly coupled quantum dot: enhanced thermoelectric efficiency

We study the thermoelectric coefficients of a multi-level quantum dot (QD) weakly coupled to two electron reservoirs in the Coulomb blockade regime. Detailed calculations and analytical expressions of the power factor and the figure of merit are presented. We restrict our interest to the limit where the energy separation between successive energy levels is much larger than the thermal energy (i.e., the quantum limit) and we report a giant enhancement of the figure of merit due to the violation of the Wiedemann-Franz law when phonons are frozen. We point out the similarity of the electronic and the phonon contribution to the thermal conductance for zero-dimensional electrons and phonons. Both contributions show an activated behavior. Our findings suggest that the control of the electron and phonon confinement effects can lead to nanostructures with improved thermoelectric properties.