Related papers: Piezoresistive heat engine and refrigerator

The purpose of this work is to present the concept of an autonomous Stirling-like engine powered by anisotropy of thermodynamic fluctuations. Specifically, simultaneous contact of a thermodynamic system with two heat baths along coupled…

The efficient conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work by a heat engine is an ongoing technological challenge. Since the pioneering work of Carnot, it is known that the efficiency of heat engines is bounded by a fundamental upper…

There are many exotic thermodynamic processes that are hard to study in nature. Here, we synthesize a structured environment to explore the extremes of thermodynamics. We present an engine running at extreme temperatures of above ten…

A single-piston quantum engine based on a harmonic oscillator acting as the working fluid is proposed. Using the fact that the interaction between the piston and the oscillator depends on the extent of the oscillator wavefunction, one can…

Optical tweezers can confine position as well as orientation of a Brownian particle by simultaneously exerting restoring force and torque on it. Here we have proposed the theoretical model of a microscopic Stirling engine, using a passive…

Brownian heat engines use local temperature gradients in asymmetric potentials to move particles against an external force. The energy efficiency of such machines is generally limited by irreversible heat flow carried by particles that make…

We investigate, in an analytical fashion, quantum Carnot cycles of a microscopic heat engine coupled to two nite heat reservoirs, whose internal cycles could own higher e ciency than the standard Carnot limit without consuming extra quantum…

The triumph of heat engines is their ability to convert the disordered energy of thermal sources into useful mechanical motion. In recent years, much effort has been devoted to generalizing thermodynamic notions to the quantum regime,…

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…

Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…

Energy loss due to ohmic heating is a major bottleneck limiting down-scaling and speed of nano-electronic devices, and harvesting ohmic heat for signal processing is a major challenge in modern electronics. Here we demonstrate that thermal…

We report on the study of student difficulties regarding heat engine in the context of Stirling cycle within upper-division undergraduate thermal physics course. An in-class test about a Stirling engine with a regenerator was taken by three…

We propose a solid state refrigeration technique based on repeated adiabatic magnetization/demagnetization cycles of a superconductor which acts as the working substance. The gradual cooling down of a substrate (normal metal) in contact…

We propose a quantum heat engine based on a quadratically coupled optomechanical system. The optical component of the system is driven periodically with an incoherent thermal drive, which induces periodic oscillations in the mechanical…

Technological progress in electronics usually requires their use in increasingly aggressive environments, such as rapid thermal cycling and high power density. Thermal diodes appear as excellent candidates to thermally protect critical…

We study the unitary time evolution of a simple quantum Hamiltonian describing a heat engine coupled to two heat baths. The engine is modeled as a three-level system. Each heat bath consists of a single harmonic oscillator. The engine is…

A heat engine is a machine which uses the temperature difference between a hot and a cold reservoir to extract work. Here both reservoirs are quantum systems and a heat engine is described by a unitary transformation which decreases the…

Thermodynamics of nanoscale devices is an active area of research. Despite their noisy surrounding they often produce mechanical work (e.g. micro-heat engines), display rectified Brownian motion (e.g. molecular motors). This invokes…

Even microscopic engines have hitherto been defined to require macroscopic elements such as heat reservoirs, but here we observe that what makes engines useful is energy transfer across a large ratio of dynamical time scales…

Piezoelectric ultrasonic motors perform the advantages of compact design, faster reaction time, and simpler setup compared to other motion units such as pneumatic and hydraulic motors, especially its non-ferromagnetic property makes it a…