The effect of dephasing on thermoelectric efficiency of molecular junctions

Abstract

In this work we report the results of theoretical analysis of the effect of thermal environment on the thermoelectric efficiency of molecular junctions. The environment is represented by two thermal phonon baths associated with the electrodes which are kept at different temperatures. The analysis is carried out using the Buttiker model within the scattering matrix formalism to compute electron transmission through the system. This approach is further developed, so that the dephasing parameters are expressed in terms of relevant energies including the thermal energy, strengths of coupling between the molecular bridge and the electrodes and characteristic energies of electron-phonon interactions. It is shown that the latter significantly affect thermoelectric efficiency by destroying coherency of the electron transport through the considered system.