Thermally modulated resonant quantum transport in asymmetric nanoscale junctions for optimal bias and power generation analysis

Abstract

A phenomenological effective transport model inspired by Landauer-type resonant transport concepts is presented to investigate thermally modulated transport behavior in an asymmetric nanoscale junction under combined electrical and thermal driving. The proposed framework incorporates resonance alignment, thermal resonance modulation, finite-bias activation, damping effects, and structural asymmetry within a computationally efficient formulation. The transport response is systematically analyzed as functions of bias voltage, asymmetry strength, temperature, and resonance energy. The results show that increasing structural asymmetry reduces the magnitudes of the heat-current proxy, charge-current magnitude, and electrical power magnitude due to weaker effective transport coupling. However, the optimal bias voltage associated with the maximum electrical power magnitude remains only weakly affected within the investigated parameter range because the asymmetry factor primarily scales the transport amplitude while weakly modifying the resonance-alignment condition. The simulations further demonstrate that the maximum electrical power magnitude increases with temperature, whereas the thermal sensitivity gradually decreases at elevated temperatures. In addition, the optimal operating bias increases with resonance energy according to the resonance-alignment condition included in the model. A two-dimensional operating map identifies a stable high-performance transport region near 4-4.5 mV. All numerical parameters used in the simulations are explicitly reported to support reproducibility. The proposed framework provides a simplified and physically interpretable platform for analyzing resonance-dominated transport trends in asymmetric nanoscale systems and may serve as a useful basis for future microscopic or experimentally calibrated studies.