In this talk, I will present the comparison between recent experimental results obtained by the quantum optics group at the ETH Zurich and theory predictions concerning thermoelectric effects in a two-terminal geometry realizing a cold atom equivalent of mesoscopic physics setups.
The theoretical approach, as confirmed by the experimental observations, states that thermoelectric effects arise as a competition between thermodynamics and transport properties. A systematic investigation of the effects of geometry and disorder on the thermoelectric performance of the system shows that this device provides a controllable model-system to explore mechanisms of energy conversion. I will then provide a study of the efficiency, figure of merit and output power of what can be considered as a cold atom based thermoelectric heat engine.
