No Arabic abstract
The efficiency at maximum power has been investigated extensively, yet the practical control scheme to achieve it remains elusive. We fill such gap with a stepwise Carnot-like cycle, which consists the discrete isothermal process (DIP) and adiabatic process. With DIP, we validate the widely adopted assumption of mathscr{C}/t relation of the irreversible entropy generation S^{(mathrm{ir})}, and show the explicit dependence of the coefficient mathscr{C} on the fluctuation of the speed of tuning energy levels as well as the microscopic coupling constants to the heat baths. Such dependence allows to control the irreversible entropy generation by choosing specific control schemes. We further demonstrate the achievable efficiency at maximum power and the corresponding control scheme with the simple two-level system. Our current work opens new avenues for the experimental test, which was not feasible due to the lack the of the practical control scheme in the previous low-dissipation model or its equivalents.
The efficiency of small thermal machines is typically a fluctuating quantity. We here study the efficiency large deviation function of two exemplary quantum heat engines, the harmonic oscillator and the two-level Otto cycles. While the efficiency statistics follows the universal theory of Verley et al. [Nature Commun. 5, 4721 (2014)] for nonadiabatic driving, we find that the latter framework does not apply in the adiabatic regime. We relate this unusual property to the perfect anticorrelation between work output and heat input that generically occurs in the broad class of scale-invariant adiabatic quantum Otto heat engines and suppresses thermal as well as quantum fluctuations.
We study a class of cyclic Brownian heat engines in the framework of finite-time thermodynamics. For infinitely long cycle times, the engine works at the Carnot efficiency limit producing, however, zero power. For the efficiency at maximum power, we find a universal expression, different from the endoreversible Curzon-Ahlborn efficiency. Our results are illustrated with a simple one-dimensional engine working in and with a time-dependent harmonic potential.
Given a quantum heat engine that operates in a cycle that reaches maximal efficiency for a time-dependent Hamiltonian H(t) of the working substance, with overall controllable driving H(t) = g(t) H, we study the deviation of the efficiency from the optimal value due to a generic time-independent perturbation in the Hamiltonian. We show that for a working substance consisting of two two-level systems, by suitably tuning the interaction, the deviation can be suppressed up to the third order in the perturbation parameter-and thus almost retaining the optimality of the engine.
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 engine can be achieved with the hypothetical boxcar-shaped electron transmission, which is realized here by the resonant tunneling in the one-dimensional symmetric InP/InSe superlattice. It is found with the transfer matrix method that a symmetric mode is robust that regardless of the periodicity, and the obtained boxcar-like electron transmission stems from the strong coupling between symmetric mode and Fabry-Perot modes inside the allowed band. High uniformity of the boxcar-like transmission and the sharp drop of the transmission edge are both beneficial to the maximum power and the EMP, which are optimized by the bias voltage and the thicknesses of barrier and well. The maximum power and EMP are extracted with the help of machine learning technique, and more than 95% of their theoretical limits can both be achieved for smaller temperature difference, smaller barrier width and larger well width. We hope the obtain results could provide some basic guidance for the future designs of high EMP thermoelectric heat engines.