New quantum device can work as both a motor and a refrigerator

Engineers from the RIKEN Laboratory have created a multitasking nanomachine that can simultaneously work as a

The device was one of the first to show how quantum effects, which regulate the behavior of particles on the smallest scales, can be used to improve the efficiency of nanotechnology.

Ordinary engines and refrigerators workconnecting two containers of liquid. Compression of one of them leads to heating of the liquid, while with the rapid expansion of the other, the liquid cools. If these operations are performed in a periodic cycle, the fluids will exchange energy and the system can be used as a heat engine or refrigerator.

According to Keiji Ono of the RIKEN Advanced Device Lab, it was previously impossible to configure a nanomachine to perform both tasks simultaneously.

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Now physicists have developed nanodevices, some of which are based on single atoms.

In the quantum version of the heat engine, an electron is used in a transistor.The team can increase or decrease the gap between these energy states by applying an electric field and microwaves.

“This can be analogous to the operationexpansion-contraction of the fluid in the chamber, ”the researchers note. The device also emitted microwaves when an electron passed from a high-energy level to a low-energy level.

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