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Sadi Carnot's theorem regarding the maximum efficiency of heat engines is considered to be of fundamental importance in thermodynamics. This theorem famously states that the maximum efficiency depends only on the temperature of the heat…
We consider quantum heat engines that operate between nonequilibrium stationary reservoirs. We evaluate their maximum efficiency from the positivity of the entropy production and show that it can be expressed in terms of an effective…
A quantum-mechanical analog of the Carnot engine reversibly working at vanishing temperature, shortly termed the quantum-mechanical Carnot engine, is discussed. A general formula for the efficiency of such an engine with an arbitrary…
We put forward a gauge-invariant theoretical framework for studying time-resolved thermoelectric transport in an arbitrary multiterminal electronic quantum system described by a non-interacting tight-binding model. The system is driven out…
Since its inception about two centuries ago thermodynamics has sparkled continuous interest and fundamental questions. According to the second law no heat engine can have an efficiency larger than Carnot's efficiency. The latter can be…
Charge and heat transport in nano-structures is dominated by non-equilibrium effects which strongly influence their behaviour. These effects are studied in a setup consisting of three external leads, one of which is considered as a heat…
We theoretically show how structural modifications and controlling quantum coherency can enhance linear and nonlinear thermoelectric performance in graphene nanostructure heat engines. Although graphene has emerged as a promising material…
We study coupled quantum systems as the working media of thermodynamic machines. Under a suitable phase-space transformation, the coupled systems can be expressed as a composition of independent subsystems. We find that for the coupled…
The construction of efficient thermal engines operating at finite times constitutes a fundamental and timely topic in nonequilibrium thermodynamics. We introduce a strategy for optimizing the performance of Brownian engines, based on a…
Quantum thermal machines can perform useful tasks, such as delivering power, cooling, or heating. In this work, we consider hybrid thermal machines, that can execute more than one task simultaneously. We characterize and find optimal…
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…
We show that finite system-reservoir coupling imposes a distinct quantum limit on the performance of a non-equilibrium quantum heat engine. Even in the absence of quantum friction along the isentropic strokes, finite system-reservoir…
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…
Nonreciprocity, arising from the breaking of time-reversal symmetry, has become a fundamental tool in diverse quantum technology applications. It enables directional flow of signals and efficient noise suppression, constituting a key…
We derive bounds to the thermodynamic uncertainty relations in the linear-response regime for steady-state transport in two-terminal systems when time reversal symmetry is broken. We find that such bounds are different for charge and heat…
The resource theory of quantum thermodynamics has been a very successful theory and has generated much follow-up work in the community. It requires energy-preserving unitary operations to be implemented over a system, bath, and catalyst as…
Investigating in detail the physics of energy filtering through a single planar energy barrier in nanostructured thermoelectric generators, we reinforce the non-trivial result that the anticipated enhancement in generated power at a given…
We study a refrigerator model which consists of two $n$-level systems interacting via a pulsed external field. Each system couples to its own thermal bath at temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$, respectively ($\theta\equiv T_c/T_h<1$). The…
For a generic class of machines with broken time-reversal symmetry we show that in the linear response regime the relative fluctuation of the sum of output currents for time-forward and time-reversed processes is always lower bounded by the…
We propose the use of a quantum thermal machine for low-temperature thermometry. A hot thermal reservoir coupled to the machine allows for simultaneously cooling the sample while determining its temperature without knowing the…