Quantum Photovoltaic Cells Driven by Photon Pulses

Abstract

We investigate the quantum thermodynamics of two quantum systems, a two-level system and a four-level quantum photocell, each driven by photon pulses as a quantum heat engine. We set these systems to be in thermal contact only with a cold reservoir while the heat (energy) source, conventionally given from a hot thermal reservoir, is supplied by a sequence of photon pulses. The dynamics of each system is governed by a coherent interaction due to photon pulses in terms of the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian together with the system-bath interaction described by the Lindblad master equation. We calculate the thermodynamic quantities for the two-level system and the quantum photocell including the change in system energy, the power delivered by photon pulses, the power output to an external load, the heat dissipated to a cold bath, and the entropy production. We thereby demonstrate how a quantum photocell in the cold bath can operate as a continuum quantum heat engine with a sequence of photon pulses continuously applied. We specifically introduce the power efficiency of the quantum photocell in terms of the ratio of output power delivered to an external load with current and voltage to the input power delivered by the photon pulse. Our study indicates a possibility that a quantum system driven by external fields can act as an efficient quantum heat engine under non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

A Theoretical Perspective of the Photochemical Potential in the Spectral Performance of Photovoltaic Cells

“…In the first realm, the important contributions are associated with the introduction of light’s chemical potential, in a similar form as in the present work; see, for instance, the reports by Markvart and coworkers [ 15 , 16 , 17 ]. In the realm of dissipative quantum systems and quantum thermodynamics approach, the modeling is usually based on two-level atom systems for which generalized (LGKS) quantum master equations are used with the Jaynes–Cummings Hamiltonian with the Lindblad operator for the dissipative terms [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ].…”

“…A direct correlation can be established between thermodynamic quantities and the quantum parameters entering the quasi-phenomenological Einstein model for the interaction between light and matter. From the quantum perspective, we used this level of approach because of the known difficulties of introducing dissipation due to the interaction with thermal reservoirs in the pure quantum approach [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ].…”

“…The model is quasi-phenomenological as the Einstein coefficients and possess quantum microscopic bases, having its replica in alternative approaches just as in [ 18 ]. Similarly, the normalized state populations and correspond to the diagonal elements of the density matrix.…”