The Effects of Environment on Thermopower and Thermocurrent in Open Molecular Junctions

Abstract

In this work, we consider an open single level molecular junction with electrons coupled to a single frequency phonon mode, in which the phonons are also coupled to another heat bath. By applying a temperature gradient between the electrical leads and investigating thermocurrent in non-linear regime, it is shown that the environment can excite phonons which may result in either suppression or very significant enhancement of thermocurrent, depending on the onsite energy. Similarly, in the linear regime the effects of environment are seen in the Seebeck coefficient.