Extractable work in quantum electromechanics

Abstract

Recent experiments have demonstrated the generation of coherent mechanical oscillations in a suspended carbon nanotube, which are driven by an electric current through the device above a certain voltage threshold, in close analogy with a lasing transition. We investigate this phenomenon from the perspective of work extraction, by modelling a nano-electromechanical device as a quantum flywheel or battery that converts electrical power into stored mechanical energy. We introduce a microscopic model that qualitatively matches the experimental finding, and compute the Wigner function of the quantum vibrational mode in its non-equilibrium steady-state. We characterise the threshold for self-sustained oscillations using two approaches to quantifying work deposition in non-equilibrium quantum thermodynamics: the ergotropy and the non-equilibrium free energy. We find that ergotropy serves as an order parameter for the phonon lasing transition. The framework we employ to describe work extraction is general and widely transferable to other mesoscopic quantum devices.

12 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (16)

• Cooling a nanomechanical resonator with quantum back-action
• Quantum control of a nanoparticle optically levitated in cryogenic free space
• Stabilizing Open Quantum Batteries by Sequential Measurements
• Shot Noise of a Quantum Shuttle
• Quantum nano-electromechanics with electrons, quasiparticles and Cooper pairs: effective bath descriptions and strong feedback effects
• Approaching the motional ground state of a 10 kg object
• Single-electron Tunneling with Strong Mechanical Feedback
• Dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting single-electron transistor
• Charge pumping in carbon nanotube quantum dots
• Photon-number superselection and the entangled coherent-state representation
• Strong feedback and current noise in nanoelectromechanical systems
• Correlation approach to work extraction from finite quantum systems
• Laser-like Instabilities in Quantum Nano-electromechanical Systems
• Stochastic thermodynamics of self-oscillations: the electron shuttle
• Electron-vibration effects on the thermoelectric efficiency of molecular junctions
• Dynamics and Current Fluctuations in AC driven Charge Shuttle

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Optimal local work extraction from bipartite quantum systems in the presence of Hamiltonian couplings
• Engineering a heat engine purely driven by quantum coherence
• Extended local ergotropy
• Powering an autonomous clock with quantum electromechanics
• Thermodynamics of hybrid quantum rotor devices
• Thermodynamics of autonomous optical Bloch equations