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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…
The condition for stationary engines to attain the Carnot efficiency in and beyond the linear response regime is investigated. We find that this condition for finite-size engines is significantly different from that for macroscopic engines…
We study how to achieve the ultimate power in the simplest, yet non trivial, model of a thermal machine, namely a two-level quantum system coupled to two thermal baths. Without making any prior assumption on the protocol, via optimal…
Continuous particle exchange thermal machines require no time-dependent driving, can be realised in solid-state electronic devices, and miniaturised to nanometre scale. Quantum dots, providing a narrow energy filter and allowing to…
Work extraction from a heat engine in a cycle by a quantum mechanical device (quantum "piston") is analyzed. The standard definition of work fails in the quantum domain. The correct extractable work and its efficiency bound are shown to…
We propose a two-stage cycle for an optimized linear-irreversible heat engine that operates, in a finite time, between a hot (cold) reservoir and a finite auxiliary system acting as a sink (source) in the first (second) stage. Under the…
Diverse models of engines energised by quantum-coherent, hence non-thermal, baths allow the engine efficiency to transgress the standard thermodynamic Carnot bound. These transgressions call for an elucidation of the underlying mechanisms.…
For a general thermodynamic system described as a Markov process, we prove a general lower bound for dissipation in terms of the square of the heat current, thus establishing that nonvanishing current inevitably implies dissipation. This…
Recent advances in experimental control of colloidal systems have spurred a revolution in the production of mesoscale thermodynamic devices. Functional "textbook" engines, such as the Stirling and Carnot cycles, have been produced in…
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…
The laws of thermodynamics strongly restrict the performance of thermal machines. Standard thermodynamics, initially developed for uncorrelated macroscopic systems, does not hold for microscopic systems correlated with their environments.…
We derive general trade-off relations among the power, efficiency, and constancy for two-terminal thermoelectric systems in the linear response regime. Constancy, which quantifies the steadiness of the heat engine, is measured by its…
We quantify the prior information to infer the optimal characteristics for a constrained thermodynamic process of maximum work extraction for a pair of non-identical finite systems. The total entropy of the whole system remains conserved.…
A cyclic thermodynamic heat engine runs most efficiently if it is reversible. Carnot constructed such a reversible heat engine by combining adiabatic and isothermal processes for a system containing an ideal gas. Here, we present an example…
A single driven spin is investigated as the working substance of a six-stroke irreversible quantum Carnot cycle. The role of inner friction associated with the finite-time adiabatic transformations on the cycle efficiency and the harvested…
Recent experimental breakthroughs produced the first nano heat engines that have the potential to harness quantum resources. An instrumental question is how their performance measures up against the efficiency of classical engines. For…
The problem of inference is applied to the process of work extraction from two constant heat capacity reservoirs, when the thermodynamic coordinates of the process are not fully specified. The information that is lacking, includes both the…
It was reported that, if and only if the specific heat, correlation length, and dynamical exponents $\alpha, \nu$ and $z$, fulfill the condition $\alpha-z\nu>0$, the phase transitions can enable a quantum heat engine to approach Carnot…
We study two-dimensional quantum Carnot engines of spherical symmetry by considering the case of a particle on the surface of a sphere of changing radius. The Carnot cycle is built allowing the state of the system to change with the…
A suitable way of quantifying work for microscopic quantum systems has been constantly debated in the field of quantum thermodynamics. One natural approach is to measure the average increase in energy of an ancillary system, called the…