An all-optical nanomechanical heat engine
  We propose and theoretically investigate a nanomechanical heat engine. We show how a levitated nanoparticle in a harmonic optical trap inside an optical cavity can be used to realize a Stirling cycle in the underdamped regime. The all-optical approach enables fast and exible control of all the thermodynamical parameters and the effcient optimization of the performance of the engine. We develop a systematic optimization procedure to determine optimal driving protocols. We further perform numerical simulations with realistic parameters and evaluate the maximum power and the corresponding effciency. 
Andreas Dechant, Nikolai Kiesel, Eric Lutz
cond-mat.stat-mech physics.optics quant-ph