Thermodynamics of a biophotomimetic nonreciprocal quantum battery

TL;DR

This paper models a nonreciprocal quantum battery inspired by bacterial light-harvesting complexes, analyzing its thermodynamic performance and optimizing energy storage and power output based on system size and coupling strength.

Contribution

It introduces a novel theoretical model of a biophotomimetic quantum battery with nonreciprocal features and analyzes its thermodynamic efficiency and optimization strategies.

Findings

Optimal system sizes vary for different energetic functions.

Strong coupling improves energy storage but reduces power output.

Ergotropy approaches capacity linearly with system size.

Abstract

We propose a theoretical model of a fully functional nonreciprocal quantum battery inspired by the architecture of bacterial light-harvesting complexes. We assign functional roles to collective quantum optical subradiant and superradiant states and introduce a unimodal cavity to assist storage. The transition rates are obtained from an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, tailored to the battery geometry which are fed into a master equation to unravel the time evolution. We investigate the complete thermodynamic performance including storage, leakage, ergotropy, work extraction, flux, and power. We observe optimization at different ring sizes, each peaking at its specific energetic function. Strong coupling between the ring and central system enhances the battery's ability to store energy but reduces the ability of power output. The ergotropy exceeds capacity and approaches it linearly with increasing system size, with an optimal small-size regime that disappears under strong coupling.