Energy storage in a continuous-variable quantum battery with nonlinear coupling

Abstract

In the quantum world, the process of energy storage can be enhanced thanks to various nonclassical phenomena. This inspiring fact suggests quantum batteries as plausible sources of power for future quantum devices, at least in principle. However, thermodynamically not all of the energy stored in a quantum battery is useful for doing work. By considering a class of models based upon quantum continuous variables, here we show how the maximum extractable energy from a bosonic quantum battery can be intimately related to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We found that realizing minimum uncertainty essentially guarantees that all of the energy stored in a Gaussian quantum battery can be withdrawn and used to do work. For a standard system where the charger and battery are coupled linearly, this criterion is satisfied rather trivially. However, our theoretical results demonstrate that - for a quantum battery with nonlinear coupling - a state of minimum uncertainty can also be achieved nontrivially via the generation of quantum squeezing. We characterize the charging performance of our proposed continuous variable quantum batteries in detail, and we hope that our theory may be useful in the design of a new generation of efficient quantum batteries harnessing bosonic excitations, such as those built with photonic architectures.