Related papers: Quantum point contacts as heat engines
We investigate the quantum thermodynamic cycle of a quantum heat engine carrying out an Otto thermodynamic cycle. We use the thermal properties of a moving heat bath with relativistic velocity with respect to the cold bath. As a working…
The efficiency of an heat engine is traditionally defined as the ratio of its average output work over its average input heat. Its highest possible value was discovered by Carnot in 1824 and is a cornerstone concept in thermodynamics. It…
After a brief historical perspective, we introduce the key notions of work and heat for quantum systems, to then apply them to quantum engines operating on quantum Otto and Carnot cycles. The irreversible and dissipative character of the…
Quantum heat engines employ as working agents multi-level systems instead of gas-filled cylinders. We consider particularly two-level agents such as electrons immersed in a magnetic field. Work is produced in that case when the electrons…
We introduce a new class of mesoscopic heat engines consisting of a tunnel junction coupled to a linear thermal bath. Work is produced by transporting electrons up against a voltage bias like in ordinary thermoelectrics but heat is…
Originally formulated for macroscopic machines, the laws of thermodynamics were recently shown to hold for quantum systems coupled to ideal sources of work (external classical fields) and heat (systems at equilibrium). Ongoing efforts have…
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…
Recent theoretical and experimental studies in quantum heat engines show that, in the quasi-static regime, it is possible to have higher efficiency than the limit imposed by Carnot, provided that engineered reservoirs are used. The…
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,…
Periodically driven quantum dots can act as counterparts of cyclic thermal machines at the nanoscale. In the slow-driving regime of geometric pumping, such machines have been shown to operate in analogy to a Carnot cycle. For larger driving…
Understanding the connections between information and thermodynamics has been among the most visible applications of stochastic thermodynamics. While recent theoretical advances have established that the second law of thermodynamics sets…
We study the modification of the second law of thermodynamics for a quantum system interacting with a reservoir regarding quantum coherence. The whole system is isolated so that neither energy nor information is lost. It is discovered that…
At the very foundation of the second law of thermodynamics lies the fact that no heat engine operating between two reservoires of temperatures $T_C\leq T_H$ can overperform the ideal Carnot engine: $\langle W \rangle / \langle Q_H \rangle…
We propose a quantum heat engine composed of two superconducting transmission line resonators interacting with each other via an optomechanical-like coupling. One resonator is periodically excited by a thermal pump. The incoherently driven…
We present a mechanism for efficiency increase in quantum heat engines containing internal energy levels that do not couple to the external work sink. The gain is achieved by using these levels to channel heat in a direction opposite to the…
From the thermodynamic equilibrium properties of a two-level system with variable energy-level gap $\Delta$, and a careful distinction between the Gibbs relation $dE = T dS + (E/\Delta) d\Delta$ and the energy balance equation $dE = \delta…
We consider the efficiency at maximum power of a quantum Otto engine, which uses a spin or a harmonic system as its working substance and works between two heat reservoirs at constant temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$ $ (<T_h)$. Although the…
Quantum coherence has been demonstrated in various systems including organic solar cells and solid state devices. In this letter, we report the lower and upper bounds for the performance of quantum heat engines determined by the efficiency…
The introduction of the quantum analogue of a Carnot engine based on a bath comprising of particles with a small amount of coherence initiated an active line of research on the harnessing of different quantum resources for the enhancement…
Heat and work in thermodynamics refer to the measurement of changes in energy content of external bodies (baths and agents). We discuss the implications of quantum mechanics on the possibility to measure work in a mesoscopic context. The…