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Levitating nanoparticles

On the way to equilibrium

Nature Nanotechnology volume 9, pages 334–335 (2014)Cite this article

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The statistical properties of the fluctuations of the entropy production rate are measured for a nanomechanical oscillator relaxing from an out-of-equilibrium steady state towards thermodynamic equilibrium.

No natural or technological system is in a perfect thermodynamical equilibrium (that is, in a state for which the average fluxes of energy and mass are exactly zero). A system is usually either driven out of equilibrium by external forces or temperature gradients, or is slowly relaxing towards equilibrium. The second law of thermodynamics imposes strong constraints on the average work performed by the external forces and on the average heat dissipated towards the heat bath. These constraints on the mean values are certainly sufficient to characterize macroscopic systems, where fluctuations are negligible. Indeed, thermodynamics does not take into account fluctuations, which instead may play a key role in the dynamics of small systems, where the thermodynamic variables such as work, heat and entropy fluctuate too. The statistical properties of the fluctuations of these variables are nowadays widely studied within the framework of stochastic thermodynamics1,2,3. Now writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Lukas Novotny and colleagues from ETH Zürich, the Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats in Barcelona, and University of Vienna report4 on an experimental and theoretical application of the concepts of stochastic thermodynamics to a small nanomechanical system, which relaxes from an out-of-equilibrium steady state towards equilibrium.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of a conductor whose ends are in contact with two heat baths at temperature TH and TC with TH > TC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sergio Ciliberto is at the Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS de Lyon 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon, France,

    Sergio Ciliberto

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  1. Sergio Ciliberto
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Correspondence to Sergio Ciliberto.

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Ciliberto, S. On the way to equilibrium. Nature Nanotech 9, 334–335 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.89

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