Related papers: Efficiency and dissipation in a two-terminal therm…
We investigate whether size imposes a fundamental constraint on the efficiency of small thermal machines. We analyse in detail a model of a small self-contained refrigerator consisting of three qubits. We show analytically that this system…
We study the efficiency of a single particle Szilard and Carnot engine. Within a first order correction to the quasi-static limit, the work distribution is found to be Gaussian and the correction factor to average work and efficiency only…
We study linear response and nonequilibrium steady-state thermoelectric transport through a single-level quantum dot tunnel coupled to two reservoirs held at different temperatures as well as chemical potentials. A fermion occupying the dot…
Thermoelectric energy conversion is a direct but low-efficiency process, which precludes the development of long-awaited wide-scale applications. As a breakthrough permitting a drastic performance increase is seemingly out of reach, we…
Our experiments show that for two or more pieces of a wire, of different lengths in general, combined in parallel and connected to a dc source, the current ratio evolves towards unity as the combination is cooled to the superconducting…
Conventional thermionic power generators and refrigerators utilize a barrier in the direction of transport to selectively transmit high-energy electrons. Here we show that the energy spectrum of electrons transmitted in this way is not…
For a general thermodynamic system described as a Markov process, we prove a general lower bound for dissipation in terms of the square of the heat current, thus establishing that nonvanishing current inevitably implies dissipation. This…
The present work investigates the generalized extreme bounds of the coefficient of performance (COP) for the power law dissipative Carnot-like refrigerator in the presence of non-adiabatic dissipation under $\chi$ and $\dot{\Omega}$…
Several recent theories address the efficiency of a macroscopic thermodynamic motor at maximum power and question the so-called "Curzon-Ahlborn (CA) efficiency." Considering the entropy exchanges and productions in an n-sources motor, we…
We construct an example of heat engine whose efficiency at maximum power breaks down the previously derived bounds in the linear response regime. Such example takes a classical harmonic oscillator as the working substance undergoing a…
Traditional thermoelectric Peltier coolers exhibit a cooling limit which is primarily determined by the figure of merit, zT. Rather than a fundamental thermodynamic limit, this bound can be traced to the difficulty of maintaining…
We study the statistical properties of charge and energy transport in electron conducting junctions with electron-phonon interactions, specifically, the thermoelectric efficiency and its fluctuations. The system comprises donor and acceptor…
Situations where a spontaneous process of energy or matter transfer is enhanced by an external device are widespread in nature (human sweating system, enzyme catalysis, facilitated diffusion across bio-membranes, industrial heat…
The multi-terminal generalization of the steady-state density functional theory for the description of electronic and thermal transport (iq-DFT) is presented. The linear response regime of the framework is developed leading to exact…
The limit energy theorem which determines the possibility of transformation the energy flow in power systems in the absence of technical work is investigated and proved for such systems as gas lasers and plasmatrons, chemical gas reactors,…
Based on a quantum thermodynamic protocol for shortcut to isothermality that smoothly modify the system-reservoir interaction can significantly speed up an isothermal process while keeping the overall dissipation constant [Phys. Rev. X. 10,…
Advances in solid-state device design now allow the spectrum of transmitted electrons in thermionic and thermoelectric devices to be engineered in ways that were not previously possible. Here we show that the shape of the electron energy…
The problem of inference is applied to the process of work extraction from two constant heat capacity reservoirs, when the thermodynamic coordinates of the process are not fully specified. The information that is lacking, includes both the…
Thermoelectric transport involving an arbitrary number of terminals is discussed in the presence of a magnetic field breaking time-reversal symmetry within the linear response regime using the Landauer-B\"uttiker formalism. We derive a…
In traditional thermodynamics the Carnot cycle yields the ideal performance bound of heat engines and refrigerators. We propose and analyze a minimal model of a heat machine that can play a similar role in quantum regimes. The minimal model…