Thermoelectric effect in a bi-layer system

We show that an electric field appears in one layer of a bi-layer semiconductor system when a temperature gradient is applied in the other one. This trans-layer Seebeck effect exists on account of the inter-layer long-range electron–electron scattering and represents a generalization of the Coulomb drag phenomenon, defined as the mutual friction of two electron systems, to thermal perturbations. An effective thermopower coefficient αD is calculated within the random-phase approximation for the Coulomb interaction. At low temperature, αD is found to be directly proportional to the electron–electron scattering rate in 2D, View the MathML source.