Related papers: Efficiency and dissipation in a two-terminal therm…
The controversial existence of negative temperatures has stirred interesting debates that have reached the foundations of thermodynamics, including questions on the second law, the Carnot efficiency and the statistical definition of…
The electronic thermoelectric coefficients are analyzed in the vicinity of one and two Anderson localization thresholds in three dimensions. For a single mobility edge, we correct and extend previous studies, and find universal approximants…
Delimiting the bounds of optimal performance for heat engines (HEs), refrigerators (REs), and heat pumps (HPs) is a central goal in thermodynamics. While low-dissipation (LD) models have proven valuable for this purpose, the role of heat…
Whether the strong coupling to thermal baths can improve the performance of quantum thermal machines remains an open issue under active debate. Here, we revisit quantum thermal machines operating with the quasi-static Carnot cycle and aim…
We have studied the single particle heat engine and refrigerator driven by time asymmetric protocol of finite duration. Our system consists of a particle in a harmonic trap with time-periodic strength that drives the particle cyclically…
We explore the possibility of enhancing the performance of small thermal machines by the presence of common noise sources. In particular, we study a prototypical model for an autonomous quantum refrigerator comprised by three qubits coupled…
According to Thermodynamics, the efficiency of a heat engine is upper bounded by Carnot efficiency. For macroscopic systems, the Carnot efficiency is, however, achieved only for quasi static processes. And, considerable attention has been…
The bottleneck in modern thermoelectric power generation and cooling is the low energy conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials. The detrimental effects of lattice phonons on performance can be mitigated, but achieving a high…
The efficiency of microscopic heat engines in a thermally heterogenous environment is considered. We show that, as a consequence of the recently discovered entropic anomaly, quasi-static engines, whose efficiency is maximal in a fluid at…
We study thermoelectric transport through double quantum dots system with spin-dependent interdot coupling and ferromagnetic electrodes by means of the non-equilibrium Green function in the linear response regime. It is found that the…
Improvement of thermoelectric systems in terms of performance and range of applications relies on progress in materials science and optimization of device operation. In this chapter, we focuse on optimization by taking into account the…
An important goal in nanoelectromechanics is to cool the vibrational motion, ideally to its quantum ground state. Cooling by an applied charge current is a particularly simple and hence attractive strategy to this effect. Here, we explore…
The efficiency at maximum power (EMP) of heat engines operating as generators is one corner stone of finite-time thermodynamics, the Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency $\eta_{\rm CA}$ being considered as a universal upper bound. Yet, no valid…
We present a new outlook on the climate system thermodynamics, studying some of its macroscopic properties in terms of the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. We review and clarify the notion of efficiency of the climate system by…
It is shown that for the hopping regime, the thermopowers in both finite two-terminal and three-terminal systems are governed by the edges of the samples. This is due to the fact that the energy transfer between a transport electron and a…
According to classical Boltzmannian thermodynamics, the efficiency of a cyclic machine is strictly lower than one. Such a result is a straightforward consequence of the second principle of thermodynamics. Recent advances in the study of the…
So far, the efficiency of thermoelectric energy conversion remains low compared to traditional technologies, such as coal or nuclear. This low efficiency can be explained by connecting the thermoelastic properties of the electronic working…
The efficiency statistics of a small thermodynamic machine has been recently investigated assuming that the total dissipation was a linear combination of two currents: the input and output currents. Here, we relax this standard assumption…
The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations play on the dynamics of small systems. We…
Following the result by Skrzypczyk et al., arXiv:1009.0865, that certain self-contained quantum thermal machines can reach Carnot efficiency, we discuss the functioning of self-contained quantum thermal machines and show, in a very general…