Fluctuating local thermoelectric heat in dirty metals

Using a recently developed multilead theory of dephasing in mesoscopic conductors, the mean-squared magnitude of the local Peltier heat in a uniform disordered metal is calculated diagrammatically. A heuristic estimate based on conductance fluctuation theory is also developed, and gives the same results. The generation and absorption of local thermoelectric heats require both phase-coherent elastic scattering to produce local conductance fluctuations and phase-breaking inelastic scattering to transport heat to and from the reservoirs. This phenomenon can cause substantial spatial variations in the electron temperature of low-carrier-density, clean, quasi-two-dimensional metals. © 1993 The American Physical Society.