Related papers: A spin heat engine coupled to a harmonic-oscillato…
A quantum flywheel is studied with the purpose of storing useful work in quantum levels, while additional power is extracted continuously from the device. The flywheel gains its energy form a quantum heat engine. Generally, when a work…
We demonstrate that the system composed of a gyrotropic particle out of thermal equilibrium with vacuum can be regarded as a heat engine. Such a particle, initially at rest, will experience a fluctuation-induced torque and start to rotate,…
Miniaturized heat engines constitutes a fascinating field of current research. They are being studied theoretically as well as experimentally, with experiments involving colloidal particles and harmonic traps and even bacterial baths acting…
Developments in the thermodynamics of small quantum systems envisage non-classical thermal machines. In this scenario, energy fluctuations play a relevant role in the description of irreversibility. We experimentally implement a quantum…
We study the performance of a quantum Otto heat engine with two spins coupled by a Heisenberg interaction, taking into account not only the mean values of work and efficiency but also their fluctuations. We first show that, for this system,…
We propose and analyse an autonomous engine, which combines ideas from electronic transport and self-oscillating heat engines. It is based on the electron-shuttling mechanism in conjunction with a rotational degree of freedom. We focus in…
We investigate a quantum heat engine with a working substance of two particles, one with a spin $1/2$ and the other with an arbitrary spin (spin $s$), coupled by Heisenberg exchange interaction, and subject to an external magnetic field.…
A single-piston quantum engine based on a harmonic oscillator acting as the working fluid is proposed. Using the fact that the interaction between the piston and the oscillator depends on the extent of the oscillator wavefunction, one can…
We study the energestics of a thermal motor driven by temperature differences, which consists of Brownian particles moving in a sawtooth potential with an external load where the viscous medium is alternately in contact with hot and cold…
We report the experimental realization of a single-atom heat engine. An ion is confined in a linear Paul trap with tapered geometry and driven thermally by coupling it alternately to hot and cold reservoirs. The output power of the engine…
We model a microscopic heat engine as a particle hopping on a one-dimensional lattice in a periodic sawtooth potential, with or without load, assisted by the thermal kicks it gets from alternately placed hot and cold thermal baths. We find…
A central building block of a heat engine is the working fluid, which mediates the conversion of heat into work. In nanoscale heat engines, the working fluid can be a quantum system whose behavior and dynamics are non-classical. A…
Microscopic heat engines are microscale systems that convert energy flows between heat reservoirs into work or systematic motion. We have experimentally realized a minimal microscopic heat engine. It consists of a colloidal Brownian…
We present a self-contained engine, which is made of one or more two-level systems, each of which is coupled to a single bath, as well as to a common load composed of a particle on a tilted lattice. We show that the energy and the entropy…
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…
We propose an autonomous quantum heat engine based on the thermally driven oscillation of a single electron shuttle. The electronic degree of freedom of this device acts as an internal dynamical controller which switches the interaction of…
Heat engines provide most of our mechanical power and are essential for transportation on macroscopic scale. However, although significant progress has been made in the miniaturization of electrostatic engines, it has proven difficult to…
We propose and analyze a microscopic Stirling heat engine based on an optomechanical system. The working fluid is a single vibrational mode of a mechanical resonator, which interacts by radiation pressure with a feedback-controlled optical…
Recent theory and experiments have showcased how to harness quantum mechanics to assemble heat/information engines with efficiencies that surpass the classical Carnot limit. So far, this has required atomic engines that are driven by…
Quantum heat engines are nanoscale devices that convert heat into work by exploiting quantum effects, such as coherence and interference. Previous studies of these devices did not consider spin-dependent effects, which can influence the…