Dynamic mesoscopic conductors: single electron sources, full counting statistics, and thermal machines

We theoretically investigate questions regarding the controlled emission and entanglement of individual electrons in mesoscopic circuits, the statistics of current fluctuations and electron waiting times for phase-coherent quantum transport, and thermal machines such as heat engines and refrigerators at the nano-scale. Chapter 2 focuses on dynamic single-electron sources, specifically on the generation of ac spin currents in topological insulators, Mach-Zehnder interferometry with periodic voltage pulses, and the on-demand entanglement of few-electron excitations. In Chapter 3, we present a novel theory for joint electron waiting times and we connect the occurence of negative values in the full counting statistics to a peculiar interference effect. Chapter 4 discusses a heat engine based on the interference in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer as well as implementations for the arguably smallest thermal machines making use of a Josephson junction coupled to harmonic oscillators