An all-optical nanomechanical heat engine

Abstract

We propose and theoretically investigate a nanomechanical heat engine. We show how a levitated nanoparticle in a harmonic optical trap inside an optical cavity can be used to realize a Stirling cycle in the underdamped regime. The all-optical approach enables fast and exible control of all the thermodynamical parameters and the effcient optimization of the performance of the engine. We develop a systematic optimization procedure to determine optimal driving protocols. We further perform numerical simulations with realistic parameters and evaluate the maximum power and the corresponding effciency.

5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Sideband Cooling Micromechanical Motion to the Quantum Ground State
• Quantum Theory of Cavity-Assisted Sideband Cooling of Mechanical Motion
• Ground-state cooling of a micromechanical oscillator: generalized framework for cold damping and cavity-assisted cooling schemes
• Efficiency at maximum power: An analytically solvable model for stochastic heat engines
• Single ion heat engine with maximum efficiency at maximum power
• Optimal finite-time processes in stochastic thermodynamics
• Optimal protocols for minimal work processes in underdamped stochastic thermodynamics
• Cavity-Assisted Back Action Cooling of Mechanical Resonators