No Arabic abstract
It is shown that thermally excited plasmon-polariton modes can strongly mediate, enhance and emph{tune} the near-field radiation transfer between two closely separated graphene sheets. The dependence of near-field heat exchange on doping and electron relaxation time is analyzed in the near infra-red within the framework of fluctuational electrodynamics. The dominant contribution to heat transfer can be controlled to arise from either interband or intraband processes. We predict maximum transfer at low doping and for plasmons in two graphene sheets in resonance, with orders-of-magnitude enhancement (e.g. $10^2$ to $10^3$ for separations between $0.1mu m$ to $10nm$) over the Stefan-Boltzmann law, known as the far field limit. Strong, tunable, near-field transfer offers the promise of an externally controllable thermal switch as well as a novel hybrid graphene-graphene thermoelectric/thermophotovoltaic energy conversion platform.
In this Rapid Communication, we theoretically demonstrate that near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) can be modulated and enhanced by a new energy transmission mode of evanescent wave, i.e. the nonreciprocal surface plasmons polaritons (NSPPs). In addition to the well-known coupled surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), applying a drift current on a graphene sheet leads to an extremely asymmetric photonic transmission model, which has never been noted in the noncontact heat exchanges at nanoscale before. The coupling of plasmons in the infrared bands dominates the NFRHT, associated with low loss (high loss and ultrahigh confinement) traveling along (against) the current. The dependence of NSPPs on the drift-current velocity as well as the vacuum gap is analyzed. It is found that the coupling of NSPPs at smaller and larger gap sizes exhibits different nonreciprocities. Finally, we also demonstrate that the prominent influence of the drift current on the radiative heat flux is found at a low chemical potential. These findings will open a new way to spectrally control NFRHT, which holds great potential for improving the performance of energy systems like near-field thermophotovoltaics and thermal modulator.
We investigate the full counting statistics of extreme-near-field radiative heat transfer using nonequilibrium Greens function formalism. In the extreme near field, the electron-electron interactions between two metallic bodies dominate the heat transfer process. We start from a general tight-binding electron Hamiltonian and obtain a Levitov-Lesovik like scaled cumulant generating function (SCGF) using random phase approximation to deal with electron-electron interaction. The expressions of heat current and its fluctuation (second cumulant) are obtained from the SCGF. The fluctuation symmetry relation of the SCGF is verified. In the linear response limit (small temperature gradient), we express the heat current cumulant by a linear combination of lower order cumulants. The heat current fluctuation is $2k_B T^2$ times the thermal conductance with $T$ the average temperature in the linear response limit, and this provides an evaluation of heat current fluctuation by measuring the thermal conductance in extreme-near field-radiative heat transfer.
A thermal diode based on the asymmetric radiative heat transfer between nanoparticles assisted by the nonreciprocal graphene plasmons waveguides is proposed in this work. The thermal diode system consists of two particles and a drift-biased suspended graphene sheet in close proximity of them. Nonreciprocal graphene plasmons are induced by the drift currents in the graphene sheet, and then couple to the waves emitted by the particles in near-field regime. Based on the asymmetry with respect to their propagation direction of graphene plasmons, the thermal rectification between the two particles is observed. The performance of the radiative thermal diode can be actively adjusted through tuning the chemical potential or changing the drift currents in the graphene sheet. With a large drift velocity and a small chemical potential, a perfect radiative thermal diode with a rectification coefficient extremely approaching to 1 can be achieved within a wide range of the interparticle distance from near to far-field. The dispersion relations of the graphene plasmons are adopted to analyze the underlying physics of the rectification effect. In addition, due to the wide band characteristic of the nonreciprocal graphene plasmons, the driftbiased graphene can act as a universal platform for the thermal rectification between particles. The particles with a larger particle resonance frequency are much more preferred to produce a better thermal diode. This technology could find broad applications in the field of thermal management at nanoscale
Active control of heat flow is of both fundamental and applied interest in thermal management and energy conversion. Here, we present a fluctuational electrodynamic study of thermal radiation between twisted bilayer graphene (TBLG), motivated by its unusual and highly tunable plasmonic properties. We show that near-field heat flow can vary by more than 10-fold over only a few degrees of twist, and identify special angles leading to heat flow extrema. These special angles are dictated by the Drude weight in the intraband optical conductivity of TBLG, and are roughly linear with the chemical potential. Further, we observe multiband thermal transport due to the increasing role of interband transitions as the twist angle decreases, in analogy to monolayer graphene in a magnetic field. Our findings are understood via the surface plasmons in TBLG, and highlight its potential for manipulating radiative heat flow.
Boundaries and edges of a two dimensional system lower its symmetry and are usually regarded, from the point of view of charge transport, as imperfections. Here we present a first study of the behavior of graphene plasmons in a strong magnetic field that provides a different perspective. We show that the plasmon resonance in micron size graphene disks in a strong magnetic field splits into edge and bulk plasmon modes with opposite dispersion relations, and that the edge plasmons at terahertz frequencies develop increasingly longer lifetimes with increasing magnetic field, in spite of potentially more defects close to the graphene edges. This unintuitive behavior is attributed to increasing quasi-one dimensional field-induced confinement and the resulting suppression of the back-scattering. Due to the linear band structure of graphene, the splitting rate of the edge and bulk modes develops a strong doping dependence, which differs from the behavior of traditional semiconductor two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) systems. We also observe the appearance of a higher order mode indicating an anharmonic confinement potential even in these well-defined circular disks. Our work not only opens an avenue for studying the physics of graphene edges, but also supports the great potential of graphene for tunable terahertz magneto-optical devices.