Heat flow enhancement in a nanoscale plasmonic junction induced by Kondo resonances and electron-phonon coupling

Recently, we showed that plasmon-exciton coupling can increase entropy current through a bridge coupled to plasmonic metal nanoparticles. Here we show that electron-phonon coupling can also be used to control the entropy current in similar systems. Entropy current tends to decrease due to electron-phonon coupling and to exhibit a monotonous decrease upon temperature ramping. However, an anomaly affecting the current where it is enhanced by electron-phonon coupling is indicated at around 42 times the system's Kondo temperature. We therefore report means to control heat flow by tuning the Kondo resonance through the electron-phonon coupling. We analyze the conditions that bring about these trends due to electron-phonon coupling by employing non-equilibrium Green's function formulation addressing the entropy current and the derived heat flow.

Automated summary

This study investigates the impact of plasmon-exciton coupling and electron-phonon coupling on entropy current, revealing that electron-phonon coupling can be used to control the entropy current in the system. The entropy current decreases monotonically with increasing temperature, but an anomaly of enhanced current is observed near 42 times the system's Kondo temperature due to electron-phonon coupling.