- Photo-Carnot engine
A Photo-Carnot engine is a
Carnot cycle engine in which the working medium is a photon inside a cavity with perfectly reflecting walls.Radiation is the working fluid, and the piston is driven by radiation pressure.A quantum Carnot engine is one in which the atoms in the heat bath are given a small bit of quantum coherence. The phase of the atomic coherence provides a new control parameter. [cite web
url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5608/862|title=Extracting Work from a Single Heat Bath via Vanishing Quantum Coherence -- Scully et al. 299 (5608): 862 -- Science|publisher=www.sciencemag.org|accessdate=2008-06-18]The deep physics behind the
second law of thermodynamics is not violated; nevertheless, the quantum Carnot engine has certain features that are not possible in a classical engine.ee also
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Carnot heat engine
*Radiometer Footnotes
Further reading
*cite journal|url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5608/862|title=Extracting Work from a Single Heat Bath via Vanishing Quantum Coherence|author=Marlan O. Scully, et al.|journal=Science|date=
2003-02-07 |volume=299|issue=5608|pages=862–864|doi=10.1126/science.1078955
*cite conference|url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AIPC..643...92Z|title=The Photo-Carnot Cycle: The Preparation Energy for Atomic Coherence|author=Zubairy, M. Suhail|booktitle=QUANTUM LIMITS TO THE SECOND LAW: First International Conference on Quantum Limits to the Second Law. AIP Conference Proceedings|volume=643|pages=92–97|date=2002|doi=10.1063/1.1523787
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