Thermoelectric Transport with Metamaterials

Thermoelectricity is a basic transport phenomenon encompassing thermodynamically reversible heat-to-electricity conversion. Much of the current research in this area has been focused on the electronic, phonon, and transport properties of materials as a viable route to optimize existing and engineer new compositions for better practical devices. Here I would like to explore a macroscopic perspective that helps us think differently of controlling thermoelectricity. Using thermodynamics, circuit theory, and transformation optics an efficient approach is offered for the design of thermoelectric metamaterials with targeted functionalities. For example, thermoelectric cloaks and rotators can be achieved by enforcing preservation of the invariance of the governing and constitutive thermodynamic equations. Using basic relations for in-parallel and in-series connected components, the independent control of the coupled via Seebeck coefficient thermal and heat currents can also be achieved. Our pathways for constructing metamaterials capable of achieving such functions is especially exciting for the construction of actual devices.