Natalia Ares is an Associate Professor at University of Oxford and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. She works on experiments to advance quantum technologies, with a focus on artificial intelligence for quantum device control and quantum thermodynamics. She was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant focused on the study of thermodynamics at the nanoscale. During her PhD, she focused on SiGe-based devices for quantum computing at CEA Grenoble, France. 

She completed her undergraduate studies in Physics and a master equivalent in the theory of quantum chaos at University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she was born and raised. 

Title: Quantum devices for thermodynamics at the nanoscale

Abstract: As we miniaturize devices to reach the quantum regime, the needs arises to test the laws of thermodynamics in a new realm, in which fluctuations and quantum effects play a very important role. I will discuss how to explore the thermodynamics of the semiconductor devices at nanometer scales, and I will show how we measure the thermodynamic cost of recording the passage of time. We find that the accuracy of our clock and the entropy produced by it are proportional, as predicted both for classical and quantum regimes.

Coupling charge or spin states to mechanical motion might allow us not only to build nanoscale motors but to measure the thermodynamic cost of quantum information processing. Fully suspended carbon nanotube devices allow us to control mechanical, electronic and spin degrees of freedom with high accuracy. Using these devices we find that the coupling of electron transport to the nanotube displacement is ultra-strong. I will discuss how this experimental platform can allow for the study of non-chip quantum energetics.