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Scientific Reports

Improving quantum-battery charging via unidirectional quantum jumps to metastable state

Ewelina Lange, Grzegorz Chimczak, A. Kowalewska-Kudłaszyk, Kishore Thapliyal, Jan Peřina

Published Jun 16, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In the process of charging a quantum battery, quantum jumps play a detrimental role because they induce transitions from higher to lower energy levels, leading to energy dissipation. This behavior directly opposes the fundamental objective of the charging protocol, which is to increase the population of higher-energy states and store usable energy in the system. Furthermore, decoherence introduced by randomness of quantum jumps leads to a mixed state, thereby reducing the amount of energy that can be extracted from the charged quantum battery. Here, we propose a quantum battery comprising an ensemble of three-level atoms in the Λ configuration to store energy in the metastable state over a long time. We demonstrate that, when spontaneous atomic transitions are restricted to occur solely from the excited state to a metastable state, with decay to the ground state completely suppressed, quantum jumps acquire a constructive character. Under these conditions, they drive the quantum battery to a fully charged state, render the entire stored energy extractable, and shorten the duration of the second stage of the charging protocol.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-026-56685-1

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In the process of charging a quantum battery, quantum jumps play a detrimental role because they induce transitions from higher to lower energy levels, leading to energy dissipation. This behavior directly opposes the fundamental objective of the charging protocol, which is to increase the population of higher-energy states and store usable energy in the system. Furthermore, decoherence introduced by randomness of quantum jumps leads to a mixed state, thereby reducing the amount of energy that can be extracted from the charged quantum battery. Here, we propose a quantum battery comprising an ensemble of three-level atoms in the Λ configuration to store energy in the metastable state over a long time. We demonstrate that, when spontaneous atomic transitions are restricted to occur solely from the excited state to a metastable state, with decay to the ground state completely suppressed, quantum jumps acquire a constructive character. Under these conditions, they drive the quantum battery to a fully charged state, render the entire stored energy extractable, and shorten the duration of the second stage of the charging protocol.
In the process of charging a quantum battery, quantum jumps play a detrimental role because they induce transitions from higher to lower energy levels, leading to energy dissipation. This be- havior directly opposes the fundamental objective of the charging protocol, which is to increase the population of higher-energy states and store usable energy in the system. Furthermore, decoherence introduced by randomness of quantum jumps leads to a mixed state, thereby reducing the amount of energy that can be extracted from the charged quantum battery. Here, we propose a quantum battery comprising an ensemble of three-level atoms in the Λ configuration to store energy in the metastable state over a long time. We demonstrate that, when spontaneous atomic transitions are restricted to occur solely from the excited state to a metastable state, with decay to the ground state completely suppressed, quantum jumps acquire a constructive character. Under these con- ditions, they drive the quantum battery to a fully charged state, render the entire stored energy extractable, and shorten the duration of the second stage of the charging protocol.
Quantum batteries are quantum systems that store useful energy, which can be subsequently extracted to perform work. In this paper, we investigate the charging dynamics of the quantum battery under continuous measurements and post-selection. By post-selecting the trajectories with no quantum jump ∣1⟩→∣0⟩|1\rangle \rightarrow |0\rangle∣1⟩→∣0⟩ in a three-level system, the dynamics is effectively confined to a two-level (∣2⟩−∣1⟩)(|2\rangle-|1\rangle)(∣2⟩−∣1⟩) manifold. We analyze the resulting charging dynamics under both σxσ_xσx​- and σyσ_yσy​-driving protocols and investigate the roles of detuning, coherent driving, non-linearity, and measurement backaction. The generation and dynamics of quantum coherence, which plays a pivotal role in quantum battery, are also analyzed under post-selection. The advantage and comparison of our results over those of a generic two-level system and with the Lindblad dynamics are also highlighted. Our work explores the interplay between the measurement axis and the driving protocols that govern the charging rate, ergotropy, and quantum coherence of the non-Hermitian, highly tunable, and controllable quantum battery.
We consider a harmonic charging field as an energy charger for the quantum battery, which consists of an ensemble of two-level atoms. The charging of noninteracting atoms is completely fulfilled, which exhibits a substantial improvement over previous static charging fields. Involving the repulsive interactions of atoms, the fully charging is achieved with shorter charged period over the noninteracting case, yielding an advantage for the charging. Excluding the charging field, a quantum phase transition is induced by the attractive atom-atom interactions, and the interacting atoms become degenerate in the ground state. We find that the degenerate states play a negative role in the charging due to the gapless energies. The atoms with strong attractive interactions can not be charged completely, which is accompanied by a drop of the maximum stored energy.
A quantum battery (QB) is an energy storage and extraction device that is governed by the principles of quantum mechanics. Here we propose a three-level Dicke QB and investigate its charging process by considering three quantum optical states: a Fock state, a coherent state, and a squeezed state. The performance of the QB in a coherent state is significantly superior to that in a Fock or squeezed state. We show that the locked energy is positively related to the entanglement between the charger and the battery, and diminishing the entanglement increases the ergotropy. The role of quantum phase transitions in the charging process of the QB system is analyzed and we find that the behavior of maximum stored energy is jointly determined by ground and excited-state quantum phase transitions. We further demonstrate that, no matter what the initial state is, the stored energy can be completely extracted when NNN is small (N=10N=10N=10), far below the thermodynamic limit, and the charging power follows a behavior consistent with that of the stored energy.
The collective charge of NNN two-level atoms interacting in an open system is investigated. In contrast to a no atomic dissipation quantum battery, the battery remains at a steady state after reaching the moment of full charge. Considering the interactions between atoms, we find that the energy storage of quantum batteries will be significantly enhanced with the increase of atomic repulsion, and the attraction between atoms will exacerbate the dissipation of batteries in the environment. We extend this conclusion to two-level batteries in the drive field and three-level atom quantum batteries. In addition, we also investigate the dissipative charging process of multiatom quantum batteries and find that the number of atoms during the charging process can to some extent affect the energy conversion efficiency during the charging process. Under extreme conditions, the inverse temperature $\ensuremath{\beta}$ can disrupt the energy storage of the battery.
Quantum battery (QB) is an application of quantum thermodynamics which uses quantum effects to store and transfer energy, overcoming the limitations of classical batteries and potentially improving the QB's performance. However, due to the interaction with the external environment, it leads to decoherence and thus reduces both the lifetime and the charging efficiency of QB. Here, we propose suppressing the environmental dissipation in the energy-storage process of the QB by exploiting both the electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) effect and bound states. By constructing a hybrid system composed of a four-level atom and a coupled-cavity array, two bound states are formed in the system when the energy of the QB is in the energy band of the cavity array. Environmental dissipation is significantly inhibited due to the bound state and EIT effects, which extends the lifetime of the QB. We show that the charging efficiency of the QB is optimal when the energy of the QB is in resonance with the cavity. In addition, there is an optimal coupling strength between the two adjacent cavities, which helps to improve the performance of the QB. Our research has achieved the realization of long-term energy storage while improving the charging efficiency of QB, which has practical implications for the realization of QB.