Related papers: An all-optical nanomechanical heat engine
Optically-levitated nanoparticles in vacuum offer a pristine platform for high-quality mechanical oscillators, enabling a wide range of precision measurements and quantum technologies. A key performance metric in such systems is the…
In a hybrid atom-optomechanical system, the optical coupling of a mechanical mode of a nanomembrane in an optical cavity with a distant interacting atom gas permits highly non-classical quantum many-body states. We show that the mechanical…
We present a theoretical analysis of a novel scheme for optical cooling of particles that does not in principle require a closed optical transition. A tightly confined laser beam interacting with a trapped particle experiences a phase…
Information processing machines at the nanoscales are unavoidably affected by thermal fluctuations. Efficient design requires understanding how nanomachines can operate at minimal energy dissipation. In this letter we focus on mechanical…
We present a quantum heat engine based on a cavity with two oscillating mirrors that confine a quantum field as the working substance. The engine performs an Otto cycle during which the walls and a field mode interact via a nonlinear…
We propose and analyze a scheme to interface individual neutral atoms with nanoscale solid-state systems. The interface is enabled by optically trapping the atom via the strong near-field generated by a sharp metallic nanotip. We show that…
We consider a thermodynamic machine in which the working fluid is a quantized harmonic oscillator that is controlled on timescales that are much faster than the oscillator period. We find that operation in this `fast' regime allows access…
A pulsed cooling scheme for optomechanical systems is presented that is capable of cooling at much faster rates, shorter overall cooling times, and for a wider set of experimental scenarios than is possible by conventional methods. The…
We develop an alternative thermodynamic cycle for the Stirling machine, where the polytropic process plays a central role. Analytical expressions for pressure and temperatures of the working gas are obtained as a function of the volume and…
The quantum engine cycle serves as an analogous representation of the macroscopic nature of heat engines and the quantum regime of thermal devices composed of a single element. In this work, we follow the formalism of a quantum engine…
Atoms in spatially dependent light fields are attracted to local intensity maxima or minima depending on the sign of the frequency difference between the light and the atomic resonance. For light fields confined in open high-Q optical…
Optical trapping enables precise control of individual particles of different sizes, such as atoms, molecules, or nanospheres. Optical tweezers provide free-space omnidirectional optical trapping of objects in laboratories around the world.…
In this article, we review the current state of the art in using levitated nanoparticles to answer questions related to thermodynamics and non-equilibrium physics. We begin in Section 2 with a summary of the relevant deterministic and…
Based on quantum thermodynamic processes, we make a quantum-mechanical (QM) extension of the typical heat engine cycles, such as the Carnot, Brayton, Otto, and Diesel cycles, etc. The temperature is not included in these QM engine cycles,…
The interaction between dielectric particles and a laser-driven optical cavity gives rise to both conservative and dissipative dynamics, which can be used to levitate, trap and cool nanoparticles. We analytically and numerically study a…
Near-field, radially symmetric optical potentials centred around a levitated nanosphere can be used for sympathetic cooling and for creating a bound nanosphere-atom system analogous to a large molecule. We demonstrate that the long range,…
Performance of nano- and micro-scale heat engines can be improved with a help from quantum mechanical phenomena. Recently, heat reservoirs with quantum coherence have been proposed to enhance engine performance beyond the Carnot limit even…
All three motional modes of a charged dielectric nanoparticle in a Paul trap are cooled by direct feedback to temperatures of a few mK. We test two methods, one based on electrical forces and the other on optical forces; for both methods,…
The efficiency of a quantum heat engine is maximum when the unitary strokes are adiabatic. On the other hand, this may not be always possible due to small energy gaps in the system, especially at the critical point where the gap vanishes.…
We consider feedback cooling in a cavityless levitated optomechanics setup, and we investigate the possibility to improve the feedback implementation. We apply optimal control theory to derive the optimal feedback signal both for quadratic…