Thermodynamic reversible transformations in micro-electro-mechanical systems

Abstract

In this work we present accurate measurements of heat exchanged between a micro-electro-mechanical-system and a thermal bath. In particular we focus our attention in reversible transformations with the aim to arbitrarily lower the heat exchanged with the surrounding environment. As expected the limit of zero energy can only be reached in the quasi static regime, achieved approaching infinity slow transformations. Splitting the cycle used to achieve the reversible transformation we are able to directly measure the heat exchanged with the thermal bath for any variation of entropy in the system. In particular we are able to measure both positive and negative heat exchanged for protocols that reduce and increase the entropy respectively.