Solar cell as self-oscillating heat engine

TL;DR

This paper proposes that plasma oscillations in solar cells act as a self-oscillating piston, fundamentally linking the operation of solar cells to classical heat engine principles and offering a new perspective on energy conversion.

Contribution

It introduces the novel idea that plasma oscillations serve as a physical piston in solar cells, bridging quantum formalism with classical engine concepts.

Findings

Plasma oscillations can be interpreted as a piston in solar cells.

The formalism of quantum open systems supports the piston hypothesis.

This perspective unifies solar cell operation with classical self-oscillating engines.

Abstract

Solar cells are engines converting energy supplied by the photon flux into work. All known types of macroscopic engines and turbines are also self-oscillating systems which yield a periodic motion at the expense of a usually non-periodic source of energy. The very definition of work in the formalism of quantum open systems suggests the hypothesis that the oscillating "piston" is a necessary ingredient of the work extraction process. This aspect of solar cell operation is absent in the existing descriptions and the main goal of this paper is to show that plasma oscillations provide the physical implementation of a piston.