Related papers: Thermoelectric generator at optimal power with ext…
Environmentally-powered computer systems operate on renewable energy harvested from their environment, such as solar or wind, and stored in batteries. While harvesting environmental energy has long been necessary for small-scale embedded…
We study the efficiency at maximum power, $\eta_m$, of irreversible quantum Carnot engines (QCEs) that perform finite-time cycles between a hot and a cold reservoir at temperatures $T_h$ and $T_c$, respectively. For QCEs in the reversible…
A unified thermodynamic framework for characterization of functional materials is developed. This framework encompasses linear reversible and irreversible processes with thermal, electrical, magnetic, and/or mechanical effects coupled. The…
We discuss the efficiency of a heat engine operating in a nonequilibrium steady state maintained by two heat reservoirs. Within the general framework of linear irreversible thermodynamics we derive a universal upper bound on the efficiency…
We formulate the work output and efficiency for linear irreversible heat engines working between a finite-sized hot heat source and an infinite-sized cold heat reservoir until the total system reaches the final thermal equilibrium state…
Transverse thermoelectric effects interconvert charge and heat currents in orthogonal directions due to the breaking of either time-reversal symmetry or structural symmetry, enabling simple and versatile thermal energy harvesting and…
The efficiency at maximum power output of linear irreversible Carnot-like heat engines is investigated based on the assumption that the rate of irreversible entropy production of working substance in each "isothermal" process is a quadratic…
In this article, we show fundamentals and recent advances on the transverse thermoelectric generation, in which a thermopower is generated in the direction perpendicular to an applied temperature gradient. Transverse thermoelectric…
We present a unified perspective on nonequilibrium heat engines by generalizing nonlinear irreversible thermodynamics. For tight-coupling heat engines, a generic constitutive relation of nonlinear response accurate up to the quadratic order…
We propose a new connection between maximum-power Curzon-Ahlborn thermal cycles and maximum-work reversible cycles. This linkage is built through a mapping between the exponents of a class of heat transfer laws and the exponents of a family…
A thermal current, generated by a temperature gradient between two reservoirs coupled to a carefully designed photonic or (micro-) electromechanical circuit, might induce non-conservative forces that impulse a mechanical degree of freedom…
We study the efficiency of a simple quantum dot heat engine at maximum power. In contrast to the quasi-statically operated Carnot engine whose efficiency reaches the theoretical maximum, recent research on more realistic engines operated in…
Efficiency at maximum power (EMP) is a very important specification for a heat engine to evaluate the capacity of outputting adequate power with high efficiency. It has been proved theoretically that the limit EMP of thermoelectric heat…
The unavoidable irreversible losses of power in a heat engine are found to be of quantum origin. Following thermodynamic tradition a model quantum heat engine operating by the Otto cycle is analyzed. The working medium of the model is…
Coupling between heat and electrical currents is at the heart of thermoelectric processes. From a thermal viewpoint this may be seen as an additional thermal flux linked to the appearance of electrical current in a given thermoelectric…
We consider a quantum Otto cycle operating between two squeezed thermal reservoirs. The influences of the squeezing degree on the optimization performance of quantum Otto heat engines and refrigerators are investigated. We demonstrate that…
Even though irreversibility is one of the major hallmarks of any real life process, an actual understanding of irreversible processes remains still mostly semiempirical. In this paper we formulate a thermodynamic uncertainty principle for…
In this work we include, for the Carnot cycle, irreversibilities of linear finite rate of heat transferences between the heat engine and its reservoirs, heat leak between the reservoirs and internal dissipations of the working fluid. A…
We examine the efficiency of an effective two-terminal thermoelectric device under broken time-reversal symmetry. The setup is derived from a three-terminal thermoelectric device comprising a thermal terminal and two electronic contacts,…
We study the physical processes at work at the interface of two thermoelectric generators (TEGs) thermally and electrically connected in series. We show and explain how these processes impact on the system's performance: the derivation of…