Related papers: A quantum-dot heat engine operating close to the t…
Differences between the thermodynamic behavior of the three-level amplifier (a quantum heat engine based on a thermally pumped laser) and the classical Carnot cycle are usually attributed to the essentially quantum or discrete nature of the…
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 derive a bound on the efficiency of thermal engines that can be sharper than Carnot's limit. It is a function of statistical correlations between the engine internal state and Hamiltonian, can be saturated even in finite-time cycles, and…
Mesoscopic thermoelectric heat engine is much anticipated as a device that allows us to utilize with high efficiency wasted heat inaccessible by conventional heat engines. However, the derivation of the heat current in this engine seems to…
A long standing open problem whether a heat engine with finite power achieves the Carnot efficiency is investigated. We rigorously prove a general trade-off inequality on thermodynamic efficiency and time interval of a cyclic process with…
We study the maximum efficiency of a Carnot cycle heat engine based on a small system. It is revealed that due to the finiteness of the system, irreversibility may arise when the working substance contacts with a heat bath. As a result,…
Optimizing the performance of thermal machines is an essential task of thermodynamics. We here consider the optimization of information engines that convert information about the state of a system into work. We concretely introduce a…
Heat engines extract work by running cyclically between two heat reservoirs. When the two reservoirs are thermal and at different temperatures, the maximum efficiency of the engine is given by the Carnot limit. Here we consider a quantum…
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…
The widely debated feasibility of thermodynamic machines achieving Carnot efficiency at finite power has been convincingly dismissed. Yet, the common wisdom that efficiency can only be optimal in the limit of infinitely-slow processes…
Low-dimensional electronic systems in thermoelectrics have the potential to achieve high thermal-to-electric energy conversion efficiency. A key measure of performance is the efficiency when the device is operated under maximum power…
We discuss a quantum thermal machine that generates power from a thermally driven double quantum dot coupled to normal and superconducting reservoirs. Energy exchange between the dots is mediated by electron-electron interactions. We can…
We analyze the power output of a quantum dot machine coupled to two electronic reservoirs via thermoelectric contacts, and to two thermal reservoirs - one hot and one cold. This machine is a nanoscale analogue of a conventional thermocouple…
Quantum thermal machines make use of non-classical thermodynamic resources, one of which is interactions between elements of the quantum working medium. In this paper, we examine the performance of a quasi-static quantum Otto engine based…
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…
We propose a near-field inelastic thermoelectric heat engine where quantum-dots are used to effectively rectify the charge flow of photo-carriers. The device converts near-field heat radiation into useful electrical power. Heat absorption…
In this paper, we consider a model of two-level quantum heat engine to investigate the explicit analytic expression for the thermodynamics quantities in different condition under the finite-time operation. In this engine, the working…
We consider the performance of periodically driven stochastic heat engines in the linear response regime. Reaching the theoretical bounds for efficiency and efficiency at maximum power typically requires full control over the design and the…
Quantum heat engines (QHE) are thermal machines where the working substance is quantum. In the extreme case the working medium can be a single particle or a few level quantum system. The study of QHE has shown a remarkable similarity with…
We investigate a heat- to charge-current converter consisting of a single-level quantum dot coupled to two ferromagnetic metals and one ferromagnetic insulator held at different temperatures. We demonstrate that this nano engine can act as…