相关论文: What limits photosynthesis? Identifying the thermo…
Photosystems II and I (PSII and PSI) are the reaction centre complexes that drive the light reactions of photosynthesis. PSII performs light-driven water oxidation (quantum efficiencies and catalysis rates of up to 80% and 1000…
We show that planets around M-dwarfs with $M_\star \lesssim 0.2 M_\odot$ may not receive enough photons in the photosynthetically active range of $400$-$750$ nm to sustain Earth-like biospheres. As a result of the lower biological…
The ultimate climate emergency is a "runaway greenhouse": a hot and water vapour rich atmosphere limits the emission of thermal radiation to space, causing runaway warming. Warming ceases only once the surface reaches ~1400K and emits…
We show that a glass transition, signaled by a peak in the specific heat vs. temperature, can occur because a glassy system that shows no signs of aging progresses so slowly through the energy landscape that the time needed to obtain an…
The theoretical and experimental study of energy transfer in photosynthesis has revealed an interesting transport regime, which lies at the borderline between classical transport dynamics and quantum-mechanical interference effects.…
A new thermodynamic limit for the open circuit voltage of solar cells that includes thermalization is obtained in terms of photon entropy. A simple graphical construction makes it possible to link this limit to the existing limits for…
A series of recent studies has placed the best estimates of the photospheric abundances of carbon and oxygen at log epsilon = 8.39 and 8.66, respectively. These values are ~ 40 % lower than earlier estimates. A coalition of corrections due…
Biological sensory systems react to changes in their surroundings. They are characterized by fast response and slow adaptation to varying environmental cues. Insofar as sensory adaptive systems map environmental changes to changes of their…
The energy dissipated by a living organism is commonly identified with heat generation. However, as cells exchange metabolites with their environment they also dissipate energy in the form of chemical entropy. How dissipation is distributed…
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics has long been an area of substantial interest to ecologists because most fundamental biological processes, such as protein synthesis and respiration, are inherently energy-consuming. Microbial communities are…
In systems described by the scattering theory, there is an upper bound, lower than Carnot, on the efficiency of steady-state heat to work conversion at a given output power. We show that interacting systems can overcome such bound and…
The mechanical force from light -- radiation pressure -- provides an intrinsic nonlinear interaction. Consequently, optomechanical systems near their steady state, such as the canonical optical spring, can display non-analytic behavior as a…
Photoisomerization, i.e., a change of molecular structure after absorption of a photon, is one of the most fundamental photochemical processes. It can perform desirable functionality, e.g., as the primary photochemical event in human…
Understanding the connections between information and thermodynamics has been among the most visible applications of stochastic thermodynamics. While recent theoretical advances have established that the second law of thermodynamics sets…
The Sun is the primary source of energy for the Earth. The small changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) can affect our climate in the longer timescale. In the evolutionary timescale, the TSI varies by a large amount and hence its influence…
Current understanding suggests that as the Sun brightens in the far future, Earth's carbonate-silicate cycle will offset increasing temperatures by drawing CO$_2$ out of the atmosphere, ultimately leading to the extinction of all…
Mounting evidence indicates that our planet might experience runaway effects associated to rising temperatures and ecosystem overexploitation, leading to catastrophic shifts on short time scales. Remediation scenarios capable of…
For near-Sun missions, the spacecraft approaches very close to the Sun and space environmental effects become relevant. Strong restrictions on how much close it can get derive from the maximum temperature that the used materials can stand,…
The maximal concentration limit of solar radiation for photovoltaic applications is assumed to be constant, at Cmax\approx46,000 suns. This limit is easily found via a geometrical application of the 2nd law of thermodynamics to a radiation…
The selfconsistent model for the temperature dependence of photoconversion efficiency $\eta$ for highly efficient silicon solar cells (SCs) is developed. It is demonstrated that effect of the efficiency decrease due to increasing…