Related papers: A Single-Molecule Quantum Heat Engine
Cyclical heat engines are a paradigm of classical thermodynamics, but are impractical for miniaturization because they rely on moving parts. A more recent concept is particle-exchange (PE) heat engines, which uses energy filtering to…
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…
A cyclically working quantum mechanical engine that operates at a single temperature is proposed. Its energy input is delivered by a quantum measurement. The functioning of the engine does not require any feedback control. We analyze work,…
Recent developments in nanoscale experimental techniques made it possible to utilize single molecule junctions as devices for electronics and energy transfer with quantum coherence playing an important role in their thermoelectric…
Heat engines constitute the major building blocks of modern technologies. However, conventional heat engines with higher power yield lesser efficiency and vice versa and respect various power-efficiency trade-off relations. This is also…
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…
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 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…
Single-particle heat engines at atomic and colloidal scales obey the universal thermodynamic bounds on work and efficiency. Here, we translate these principles to the macroscale by building an athermal Stirling engine whose working medium…
We propose quantum engines powered entirely by the quantum measurement process. Our theoretical construction of the engine requires no work from the system Hamiltonian, and takes energy only from the process of observation to move a…
The minimal-coupling quantum heat engine is a thermal machine consisting of an explicit energy storage system, heat baths, and a working body, which alternatively couples to subsystems through discrete strokes -- energy-conserving two-body…
There are many exotic thermodynamic processes that are hard to study in nature. Here, we synthesize a structured environment to explore the extremes of thermodynamics. We present an engine running at extreme temperatures of above ten…
We propose a scheme for a single-atom quantum heat engine based on ultra-cold atom technologies. Building on the high degree of control typical of cold atom systems, we demonstrate that three paradigmatic heat engines -- Carnot, Otto and…
By integrating molecular optomechanics with molecular switches, we propose a scheme for a molecular quantum heat engine that operates autonomously through hysteretic feedback without external driving or modulation. Through a comparative…
A quantum heat engine (QHE) based on the interaction driving of a many-particle working medium is introduced. The cycle alternates isochoric heating and cooling strokes with both interaction-driven processes that are simultaneously…
Based on quantum thermodynamic processes, we make a quantum-mechanical (QM) extension of the typical heat engine cycles, such as the Carnot, Brayton, Otto, and Diesel cycles, etc. The temperature is not included in these QM engine cycles,…
The transport of electrons through serially coupled quantum dot molecules (SCQDM) is investigated theoretically for application as an energy harvesting engine (EHE), which converts thermal heat to electrical power. We demonstrate that the…
We develop a geometric framework to describe the thermodynamics of microscopic heat engines driven by slow periodic temperature variations and modulations of a mechanical control parameter. Covering both the classical and the quantum…
Particle-exchange machines utilize electronic transport to continuously transfer heat between fermionic reservoirs. Here, we couple a quantum mechanical resonator to a particle-exchange machine hosted in a quantum dot and let the system run…
We propose a scheme for a quantum thermal machine made by atoms interacting with a single non-equilibrium electromagnetic field. The field is produced by a simple configuration of macroscopic objects held at thermal equilibrium at different…