Levitated Nanoparticles for Microscopic Thermodynamics - A Review

TL;DR

This review discusses how levitated nanoparticles are used to explore microscopic thermodynamics and non-equilibrium physics, covering theoretical foundations, stochastic dynamics, stability, energy potentials, relaxation, fluctuation theorems, and heat engine applications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in using levitated nanoparticles to study thermodynamics and non-equilibrium phenomena, highlighting new experimental and theoretical insights.

Findings

Levitated nanoparticles enable detailed exploration of stochastic thermodynamics.

Effective potentials help describe non-equilibrium dynamics in time-modulated traps.

Potential for developing nanoparticle-based microscopic heat engines.

Abstract

In this article, we review the current state of the art in using levitated nanoparticles to answer questions related to thermodynamics and non-equilibrium physics. We begin in Section 2 with a summary of the relevant deterministic and stochastic forces, which determine the particle dynamics and allow for control of the particle. In Section 3 we give a brief review of the stochastic (i.e. Brownian) motion of levitated particles, since the Brownian particle is fundamental to the theory of stochastic thermodynamics. Then we discuss the stability of the trapped particles and the related Kramers escape problem in Section 4. After that, we introduce effective potentials for the energy in Section 5. These potentials are useful to describe the dynamics of levitated nanoparticles in a time-modulated trap, where the particle is driven far away from equilibrium. In Section 6 we discuss the dynamics of relaxation towards equilibrium, before we review the work on fluctuation theorems in Section 7. Fluctuation theorems are a powerful generalization of the well known thermodynamic inequalities for systems far from equilibrium. Finally, Section 8 discusses the potential of constructing new kinds of heat engines based on nanoparticles levitated in high vacuum.