Kramers barrier crossing as a cooling machine

Philip R. Schiff, Abraham Nitzan*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

The achievement of local cooling is a prominent goal in the design of functional transport nanojunctions. One generic mechanism for local cooling is driving a system through a local uphill potential step. In this paper we examine the manifestation of this mechanism in the context of the Kramers barrier crossing problem. For a particle crossing a barrier, the local effective temperature and the local energy exchange with the thermal environment are calculated, and the coefficient of performance of the ensuing cooling process is evaluated.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)399-402
Number of pages4
JournalChemical Physics
Volume375
Issue number2-3
DOIs
StatePublished - 5 Oct 2010

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israel Science Foundation
European Science Council
German Israeli Foundation
European Commission
European Research Council
Seventh Framework Programme226628

    Keywords

    • Barrier crossing
    • Cooling
    • Fokker-Planck equation

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