Key Points
Its a tiny microscopic heat engine, but overcomes a major problem in thermodynamics producing maximum power at maximum efficiency...
That hurdle has now been solved by a team of scientists from the Bengaluru-based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre For Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), potentially paving the way for extremely energy-efficient devices in the future, such as mobile phones that dont heat up during use...
Upon applying varying electric fields to this micro engine, scientists were able to drastically lower heat loss, leading to an efficiency of nearly 95 percent...
A rapidly varying electric field was applied to this micro-engine to switch it between two states, resulting in nearly 95 percent of the efficiency limit proposed by Carnot, which is the absolute maximum theoretical efficiency for any heat engine...
As a result of the applied electric field, there was a drastic reduction in heat-distribution time, allowing the engine to operate at high efficiency while also producing a large power output, even when functioning at high speeds...
