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The Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency has long served as the definite upper bound for the thermal efficiency at maximum output power, and has thus shaped the development of finite-time thermodynamics. In this paper, we repeal the ruling consensus…
The efficiency of any heat engine, defined as the ratio of average work output to heat input, is bounded by Carnot's celebrated result. However, this measure is insufficient to characterize the properties of miniaturized heat engines…
We study particle current in a recently proposed model for coherent quantum transport. In this model a system connected to mesoscopic Fermi reservoirs (meso-reservoir) is driven out of equilibrium by the action of super reservoirs…
A quantum heat engine of a specific type is studied. This engine contains a single particle confined in the infinite square well potential with variable width and consists of three processes: the isoenergetic process (which has no classical…
We investigate a multiterminal mesoscopic conductor in the quantum Hall regime, subject to temperature and voltage biases. The device can be considered as a nonequilibrium resource acting on a working substance. We previously showed that…
Power and efficiency are fundamental criteria for evaluating the performance of thermodynamic cycles. However, it is generally impossible to maximize both simultaneously. In particular, achieving maximum efficiency inevitably leads to…
We develop an exact quantum thermodynamic description for a noninteracting nanoscale steady state that couples strongly with multiple reservoirs. It is demonstrated that there exists a steady-state extension of the thermodynamic function…
The laws of thermodynamics put limits to the efficiencies of thermal machines. Analogues of these laws are now established for quantum engines weakly and passively coupled to the environment providing a framework to find improvements to…
Dealing with a generic time-local non-Markovian master equation, we define current and power to be process-dependent as in classical thermodynamics. Each process is characterized by a symmetry transformation, a gauge of the master equation,…
We introduce heat engines working in the nano-regime that allow to extract a finite amount of deterministic work. We show that the efficiency of these cycles is strictly smaller than Carnot's, and we associate this difference with a…
We study the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of a heat engine operating between two finite-sized reservoirs with well-defined temperatures. Within the linear response regime, it is found that the uniform temperature of the two reservoirs at…
From the steam engine to current nano-devices, the design of efficient thermal machines has been instrumental in modern societies. In its essence a thermal engine can be thought as a working substance, in contact with two or more baths,…
We discuss the low-frequency response of charge and heat transport to oscillatory voltage and temperature shifts in mesoscopic capacitors. We obtain within scattering theory generic expressions for the quantum admittances up to second order…
Periodically driven coherent conductors provide a universal platform for the development of quantum transport devices. Here, we lay down a comprehensive theory to describe the thermodynamics of these systems. We first focus on moderate…
We consider a quantum system strongly coupled to multiple heat baths at different temperatures. Quantum heat transport phenomena in this system are investigated using two definitions of the heat current, one in terms of the system energy,…
In this work we include, for the Carnot cycle, irreversibilities of linear finite rate of heat transferences between the heat engine and its reservoirs, heat leak between the reservoirs and internal dissipations of the working fluid. A…
We investigate the thermodynamics and fluctuations of a finite-time quantum Otto engine alternatively driven by a hot squeezed and a cold thermal reservoir. We show that reservoir squeezing significantly enhances the performance by…
The emergence of irreversibility in physical processes, despite the fundamentally reversible nature of quantum mechanics, remains an open question in physics. This thesis explores the intricate relationship between quantum mechanics and…
The efficiency at maximum power output of linear irreversible Carnot-like heat engines is investigated based on the assumption that the rate of irreversible entropy production of working substance in each "isothermal" process is a quadratic…
We study a class of cyclic Brownian heat engines in the framework of finite-time thermodynamics. For infinitely long cycle times, the engine works at the Carnot efficiency limit producing, however, zero power. For the efficiency at maximum…