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arXiv:2605.02322

Generation of heat pulses in mesoscopic conductors using light fields

Pedro Portugal, Riku Tuovinen, Christian Flindt

cond-mat.mes-hallquant-phSubmitted May 4, 2026• Announced May 5, 2026
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose to generate heat pulses in mesoscopic conductors using light fields. In contrast to single-electron excitations such as levitons, which are created by accurate voltage drives, our approach relies on modulating the temperature of an electronic reservoir. To this end, we show that the interactions with a light field can induce a controllable time-dependent temperature in an electrode. The temperature modulations generate charge-neutral heat pulses that can be emitted into a mesoscopic conductor and detected in the outputs. We illustrate our approach by evaluating the time-dependent currents and their fluctuations using a tight-binding model of two electronic reservoirs connected by a quantum point contact. Our work establishes a route towards on-demand caloritronics, where energy rather than charge carries quantum information, and it paves the way for probing time-resolved heat transport and quantum coherence in thermally driven conductors.

Comments
10 pages, 6 figures

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We propose to generate heat pulses in mesoscopic conductors using light fields. In contrast to single-electron excitations such as levitons, which are created by accurate voltage drives, our approach relies on modulating the temperature of an electronic reservoir. To this end, we show that the interactions with a light field can induce a controllable time-dependent temperature in an electrode. The temperature modulations generate charge-neutral heat pulses that can be emitted into a mesoscopic conductor and detected in the outputs. We illustrate our approach by evaluating the time-dependent currents and their fluctuations using a tight-binding model of two electronic reservoirs connected by a quantum point contact. Our work establishes a route towards on-demand caloritronics, where energy rather than charge carries quantum information, and it paves the way for probing time-resolved heat transport and quantum coherence in thermally driven conductors.
Controlling the temperature of nanoscale quantum systems is becoming increasingly important in the efforts to develop thermal devices such as quantum heat valves, heat engines, and refrigerators and to explore fundamental concepts in quantum thermodynamics. In practice, however, it is challenging to generate arbitrary time-dependent temperatures, similarly to what has been achieved for electronic voltage pulses. To overcome this problem, we here propose a fully quantum mechanical scheme to control the time-dependent environment temperature of an open quantum system. To this end, we consider a collection of quantum harmonic oscillators that mediate the interactions between the quantum system and a thermal reservoir, and we show how an effective time-dependent temperature can be realized by modulating the oscillator frequencies in time. By doing so, we can apply effective temperature pulses to the quantum system, and it can be cooled below the temperature of the environment. Surprisingly, the scheme can be realized using only a few oscillators, and our proposal thereby paves the way for controlling the temperature of open quantum systems.
In recent decades, the scientific results of superconducting electronics have been remarkable. Observation of complex quantum phenomena, such as quantum coherence or manipulation of electronic quantum states, is nowadays commonplace. The thermal counterpart of superconductive electronics is the field of coherent caloritronics, which is used to control and manage heat transfer in superconducting circuits. Micro- and nano-structured superconductors are excellent laboratories for investigating and implementing low-temperature thermal manipulation architectures, primarily due to their unique density-of-states and coherence properties. Although this topic has been extensively studied in recent decades and several experimental and theoretical results have been achieved, flexible, scalable architectures for thermal transport management systems and reliable platforms for thermal energy manipulation remain missing. The lack of practical implementation of coherent caloritronic devices is primarily due to the need to utilize magnetic fields in all proposed architectures. This makes the devices less scalable and more complex, as is usually the case with magnetic fields.The purpose of our work is to pave the way for a real and scalable implementation of caloritronic architectures that leverage electrical fields. In fact, given the experience with CMOS transistors, it is evident that electrical fields are easier to generate and more scalable than magnetic fields, which require uncomfortable coils or flux lines. The fundamental structure used throughout this thesis is the top-gate architecture, consisting of a metallic electrode separated from the portion of the device where we want to apply the electric field by an insulating layer.This thesis consists of two main results: the first one refers to the generation of thermoelectricity with superconductors and its manipulation with the application of a gate potential; the second one refers to the photonic heat transfer due to electron-photon coupling in superconducting circuits, which we will show can be manipulated via a top gate. Both of these results had already been achieved using magnetic fields, rendering the proposed devices practically useless for real applications. We will show that to reach our results, we had to find new solutions and implement novel ideas to make the structures suitable for gate tuning.
The unavoidable dissipation of heat in electronic nanostructures is a crucial problem, specially when their operation requires low temperatures. It demands finding devices able to control and redirect the excess heat, ideally without perturbing the electrostatic environment. We propose three-terminal junctions working either as thermal routers or as thermal single-pole double-throw switches controlled by a single external knob. Two models are discussed based on resonant tunneling energy filters and different couplings to the heat source: (i) Phase-coherent contact via a scanning tip modulates the relative amount of the two output currents via position-dependent quantum interference; (ii) Coupling via a gate voltage tunable filter selectively switches one of the currents in the presence of dephasing. In the later case, we find that the heat flow using ideal filtering is bounded by fourth the open conductor current.
The entanglement of coherently split electron-hole pairs in an electronic conductor is typically not considered accessible due to particle number conservation and fermionic superselection rules. We demonstrate here that current cross-correlation measurements at the outputs of an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer can nevertheless provide a robust witness of electron-hole entanglement. Specifically, we consider neutral excitations generated by modulating the transmission of an unbiased quantum point contact periodically in time. For an optimized modulation profile, an entangled state with one positively-charged leviton (a hole) and one negatively-charged leviton (an electron) gets delocalized over the two paths of the interferometer and is detected at the output arms. We evaluate the influence of finite electronic temperatures and dephasing corresponding to recent experiments.
We propose a source of purely electronic energy-entangled states implemented in a solid-state system with potential applications in quantum information protocols based on electrons. The proposed device relies on the standard tools of electron quantum optics and exploits entanglement of the Cooper pairs of a BCS superconductor. The latter is coupled via an adjustable quantum point contact to two opposite spin-polarized electron wave-guides, which are driven by trains of Lorentzian pulses. This specific choice for the drive is crucial to inject purely electronic entangled states devoid of spurious electron–hole pairs. In the Andreev regime, a perturbative calculation in the tunnel coupling confirms that entangled electrons states are generated at the output of the normal side. For arbitrary tunnel coupling and for a periodic drive, direct current and noise (auto and cross correlations) are computed numerically using a Keldysh–Nambu–Floquet formalism. Importantly, for a periodic drive, the production of these states can be controlled in time, thus implementing an on-demand source of entangled states. We exploit realistic experimental parameters for our device to identify its optimal functioning point.
Abstract We demonstrate that in a standard thermo-electric nanodevice the current and heat flows are not only dictated by the temperature and potential gradient, but also by the external action of a local quantum observer that controls the coherence of the device. Depending on how and where the observation takes place, the direction of heat and particle currents can be independently controlled. In fact, we show that the current and heat flow in a quantum material can go against the natural temperature and voltage gradients. Dynamical quantum observation offers new possibilities for the control of quantum transport far beyond classical thermal reservoirs. Through the concept of local projections, we illustrate how we can create and directionality control the injection of currents (electronic and heat) in nanodevices. This scheme provides novel strategies to construct quantum devices with application in thermoelectrics, spintronic injection, phononics, and sensing among others. In particular, highly efficient and selective spin injection might be achieved by local spin projection techniques.