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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Coherence-enhanced quantum-dot heat engine

Jaegon Um1,*, Konstantin E. Dorfman2,3,4,†, and Hyunggyu Park5,6,‡

  • 1Department of Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang 37673, Korea
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
  • 3Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, People's Republic of China
  • 4Himalayan Institute for Advanced Study, Unit of Gopinath Seva Foundation, MIG 38, Avas Vikas, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand 249201, India
  • 5School of Physics, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 02455, Korea
  • 6Quantum Universe Center, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 02455, Korea

  • *slung@postech.ac.kr
  • †dorfmank@lps.ecnu.edu.cn
  • ‡hgpark@kias.re.kr
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Phys. Rev. Research 4, L032034 – Published 25 August, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L032034

Abstract

We show that quantum coherence can enhance the performance of a continuous quantum heat engine in the Lindblad description. We investigate the steady-state solutions of the particle-exchanging quantum heat engine, composed of degenerate double quantum dots coupled to two heat baths in parallel, where quantum coherence may be induced due to interference between relaxation channels. We find that the engine power can be enhanced by the coherence in the nonlinear response regime, when the symmetry of coupling configurations between dots and two baths is broken. In the symmetric case, the coherence cannot be maintained in the steady state, except for the maximum interference degenerate case, where initial-condition-dependent multiple steady states appear with a dark state.

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Phys. Rev. Research 4, L032034– Published 25 August, 2022
  • Received 7 December 2021
  • Accepted 2 August 2022
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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