Related papers: The absoption refrigerator as a thermal transforme…

We analyze a simple implementation of an absorption refrigerator, a system that requires heat and not work to achieve refrigeration, based on two Coulomb coupled single-electron systems. We analytically determine the general condition to…

A quantum absorption refrigerator driven by noise is studied with the purpose of determining the limitations of cooling to absolute zero. The model consists of a working medium coupled simultaneously to hot, cold and noise baths. Explicit…

The energy transition is also about switching to electricity-based technologies such as heat pumps and electric mobility. They avoid heat as an intermediate step and are therefore much more efficient. This can significantly reduce the…

In the present work we study the well-known Two Capacitor Problem from a new perspective. Although this problem has been thoroughly investigated, as far as we know there are no studies of the thermodynamic aspects of the discharge process.…

The idea that one can build a solid-state device that lets heat flow more easily in one way than in the other, forming a heat valve, is counter-intuitive. However the design of a thermal rectifier can be easily understood from the basic…

We analyze the entropy production and the maximal extractable work from a squeezed thermal reservoir. The nonequilibrium quantum nature of the reservoir induces an entropy transfer with a coherent contribution while modifying its thermal…

The concept of negative temperature has recently received renewed interest in the context of debates about the correct definition of the thermodynamic entropy in statistical mechanics. Several researchers have identified the thermodynamic…

A neurophysiological thesis is proposed for thermal sensitivity that accounts for the disorder in physical processes that is fundamental to temperature. There is likely some form of thermal equilibrium rapidly established between…

Hot carrier solar cell is proposed where charge carriers are cooled adiabatically in the charge transport layers adjoining the absorber. The device resembles an ideal thermoelectric converter where thermopower, and therefore also carrier…

Temperature is introduced as a derived concept from energy and entropy. We consider two sub-systems in equilibrium for several configurations. The equality of temperature of the sub-systems is obtained from the equilibrium condition. The…

Small quantum absorption refrigerators have recently attracted renewed attention. Here we present a missing design of a two-qubit fridge, the main feature of which is that one of the two machine qubits is itself maintained at a temperature…

In classical thermodynamics, irreversible processes are accomplished with an increase of entropy and a release of heat into the environment. In the case of black hole thermodynamics, instead, the increase of entropy is related with the…

Heat transfer properties in non-reciprocal systems are discussed. An ideal experiment employing microwave or optical isolators is considered in order to investigate the possibility for a spontaneous transfer of energy between two black…

We follow the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting self-propelled motorized particles in contact with an equilibrated thermal bath. We find that the fluctuation-dissipation relation allows for the definition of an effective temperature…

Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…

A new method of refrigeration is proposed. Cooling is obtained by thermionic emission of electrons over periodic barriers in a multilayer geometry. These could be either Schottky barriers between metals and semiconductors or else barriers…

We show that a thermal reservoir can effectively act as a squeezed reservoir on atoms that are subject to energy-level modulation. For sufficiently fast and strong modulation, for which the rotating-wave-approximation is broken, the…

A non-reciprocal phonon model for microwave or optical isolators is considered. It gives a simpler framework to further investigate the formerly argued possibility for a heat transfer between black bodies at common temperatures. While the…

We introduce a natural way of visualizing the entropy production in heat transfer processes between a system and a thermal reservoir. This representation is particularly useful to highlight the asymmetric character of the heating and…

In this paper we revisit the thermocouple model, as a linear irreversible thermodynamic energy converter. As is well known, the linear model of the thermocuple is one of the classics in this branch. In this model we note two types of…