  Quantum collision models normally consist of a system interacting with a set
of ancillary units representing the environment. While these ancillary systems
are usually assumed to be either two level systems (TLS) or harmonic
oscillators, in this work we move further and represent each ancillary system
as a structured system, i.e., a system made out of two or more subsystems. We
show how this scenario modifies the kind of master equation that one can obtain
for the evolution of the open systems. Moreover, we are able to consider a
situation where the ancilla state is thermal yet has some coherence. This
allows the generation of coherence in the steady state of the open system and,
thanks to the simplicity of the collision model, this allows us to better
understand the thermodynamic cost of creating coherence in a system.
Specifically, we show that letting the system interact with the coherent
degrees of freedom requires a work cost, leading to the natural fulfillment of
the first and second law of thermodynamics without the necessity of {\it ad
hoc} formulations.

Quantum Physics