The DOI matches its Crossref record; 40 of the 40 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Most Efficient Quantum Thermoelectric at Finite Power Output
Open accessAbstract
Machines are only Carnot efficient if they are reversible, but then their power output is vanishingly small. Here we ask, what is the maximum efficiency of an irreversible device with finite power output? We use a nonlinear scattering theory to answer this question for thermoelectric quantum systems, heat engines or refrigerators consisting of nanostructures or molecules that exhibit a Peltier effect. We find that quantum mechanics places an upper bound on both power output and on the efficiency at any finite power. The upper bound on efficiency equals Carnot efficiency at zero power output but decays with increasing power output. It is intrinsically quantum (wavelength dependent), unlike Carnot efficiency. This maximum efficiency occurs when the system lets through all particles in a certain energy window, but none at other energies. A physical implementation of this is discussed, as is the suppression of efficiency by a phonon heat flow.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Thermoelectric Cooling and Power Generation
DiSalvo, F. J. (1999) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.285.5428.703 · Cited by 3,240
Efficiency of a Carnot engine at maximum power output
Curzon, F. L., & Ahlborn, B. (1975) · American Journal of Physics · doi:10.1119/1.10023 · Cited by 2,317
Mahan, G. D., & Sofo, J. O. (1996) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.93.15.7436 · Cited by 1,709
Introduction to Thermoelectricity
Goldsmid, H. J. (2010) · Springer Series in Materials Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-00716-3 · Cited by 1,505
Opportunities for mesoscopics in thermometry and refrigeration: Physics and applications
Giazotto, F., Heikkilä, T. T., Luukanen, A., Savin, A. M., & Pekola, J. P. (2006) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.78.217 · Cited by 1,058
Thermoelectricity in Molecular Junctions
Reddy, P., Jang, S.-Y., Segalman, R. A., & Majumdar, A. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1137149 · Cited by 955
A Modern Course in Statistical Physics
Brereton, M. (1981) · Physics Bulletin · doi:10.1088/0031-9112/32/3/049 · Cited by 955
Recent Developments in Semiconductor Thermoelectric Physics and Materials
Shakouri, A. (2011) · Annual Review of Materials Research · doi:10.1146/annurev-matsci-062910-100445 · Cited by 794
Molecular transport junctions: vibrational effects
Galperin, M., Ratner, M. A., & Nitzan, A. (2007) · Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter · doi:10.1088/0953-8984/19/10/103201 · Cited by 771
A Modern Course in Statistical Physics
Reichl, L. E. (2016) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9783527690497 · Cited by 765
Cited by
Fundamental aspects of steady-state conversion of heat to work at the nanoscale
Benenti, G., Casati, G., Saito, K., & Whitney, R. S. (2017) · Physics Reports · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2017.05.008 · Cited by 664
Self-citationLimits on fundamental limits to computation
Markov, I. L. (2014) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature13570 · Cited by 494
Equivalence of Quantum Heat Machines, and Quantum-Thermodynamic Signatures
Uzdin, R., Levy, A., & Kosloff, R. (2015) · Physical Review X · doi:10.1103/physrevx.5.031044 · Cited by 412
Metadata
- Authors
- Whitney, R. S.
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2014-04-04
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 13
- Pages
- 130601-130601
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W2072838036
- Cited by
- 314
- References
- 40
- FWCI
- 23.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Most Efficient Quantum Thermoelectric at Finite Power Output. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1103/physrevlett.112.130601
- The paper
- Whitney, R. S. (2014). Most Efficient Quantum Thermoelectric at Finite Power Output. Physical Review Letters. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.112.130601
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
