Strained-graphene-based highly efficient quantum heat engine operating at maximum power.

A strained graphene monolayer is shown to operate as a highly efficient quantum heat engine delivering maximum power. The efficiency and power of the proposed device exceeds that of recent proposals. The reason for these excellent characteristics is that strain enables complete valley separation in transmittance through the device, implying that increasing strain leads to very high Seebeck coefficient as well as lower conductance. In addition, since time-reversal symmetry is unbroken in our system, the proposed strained graphene quantum heat engine can also act as a high-performance refrigerator.