Exploring temperature at the nano-scale
Oct 6, 2004
Thermodynamics was developed in the mid
19th century to explain how steam engines
worked in terms of macroscopic variables
such as temperature, pressure and heat.
Boltzmann and Gibbs later established the
microscopic foundations of thermodynamics
in terms of the statistical mechanics of
large numbers (~1023) of atoms and molecules.
But with today's increasing interest
in nano-scale devices, it is crucial to ask if
the concept of temperature is valid for systems
that contain a relatively small numbers
of atoms? According to a recent study by
Michael Hartmann and Gunter Mahler of
the University of Stuttgart and Ortwin Hess
of the University of Surrey, the answer to this
question is "no" (Phys. Rev. Lett. 93 080402).
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