Thermodynamics of Nanosystems with a Special View to Charge Carriers

Basic ingredients of interfacial thermodynamics are recapitulated with a special eye on the nanometer-size regime. Questions are then briefly tackled that arise if, in heterogeneous systems, the constituent phases shrink to atomistic dimensions. Particularly helpful in this context are thermodynamic approaches, in which the introduction of interfacial tension is avoided. While the first part addresses ground structure quantities, the second part deals with questions of size and confinement effects on entropy and energy of ionic and electronic defects. These defects represent the respective excitations within this ground structure. The article emphasizes the similarities between ions and electrons manifested in the statistics rather than elaborating on the discrepancies that are primarily reflected by different densities of states and mobilities. It is, therefore, not the intention of the article to address aspects of nanoelectronics that rely on quantum transport for which many reviews are available. Nonetheless all these discussed aspects are directly relevant for both nanoionics and nanoelectronics.