title: Quantum thermal machines driven by vacuum forces.
abstract: We propose a quantum thermal machine composed of two nanomechanical resonators (two membranes suspended over a trench in a substrate) placed a few μm from each other. The quantum thermodynamical cycle is powered by the Casimir interaction between the resonators and the working fluid is the polariton resulting from the mixture of the flexural (out-of-plane) vibrations. With the help of piezoelectric cells, we select and sweep the polariton frequency cyclically. We calculate the performance of the proposed quantum thermal machines and show that high efficiencies are achieved thanks to (i) the strong coupling between the resonators and (ii) the large difference between the membrane stiffnesses. Our findings can be of particular importance for applications in nanomechanical technologies where a sensitive control of temperature is needed.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Telecomunicações, Lisbon, Portugal.|Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Terças
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Telecomunicações, Lisbon, Portugal.
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Telecomunicações, Physics of Information and Quantum Technologies Group, Portugal.|Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pezzutto
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Telecomunicações, Physics of Information and Quantum Technologies Group, Portugal.|Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa.
authors.forename: Yasser
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Omar