Thermoelectric Efficiency of a Topological Nano-Junction

We studied the non-equilibrium current, transport coefficients and thermoelectric performance of a nano-junction, composed by a quantum dot connected to a normal superconductor and a topological superconductor leads, respectively. We considered a one-dimensional topological superconductor, which hosts two Majorana fermion states at its edges. Our results show that the electric and thermal currents across the junction are highly mediated by multiple Andreev reflections between the quantum dot and the leads, thus leading to a strong nonlinear dependence of the current on the applied bias voltage. Remarkably, we find that our system reaches a sharp maximum of its thermoelectric efficiency at a finite bias, when an external magnetic field is imposed upon the junction. We propose that this feature can be used for accurate temperature sensing at the nanoscale