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.
The ultrahigh thermal conductivity of boron arsenide makes it a promising material for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics. In this work, we report measured optical properties of cubic boron arsenide crystals including the complex dielect
ric function, refractive index, and absorption coefficient in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelength range. The data were collected at room temperature using spectroscopic ellipsometry as well as transmission and reflection spectroscopy. We further calculate the optical response using density functional and many-body perturbation theory, considering quasiparticle and excitonic corrections. The computed values for the direct and indirect band gaps (4.25 eV and 2.07 eV) agree well with the measured results (4.12 eV and 2.02 eV). Our findings contribute to the effort of using boron arsenide in novel electronic and optoelectronic applications that take advantage of its demonstrated ultrahigh thermal conductivity and predicted high ambipolar carrier mobility.
Through first-principles calculations, the phonon-limited transport properties of cubic boron-V compounds (BP, BAs and BSb) are studied. We find that the high optical phonon frequency in these compounds leads to the substantial suppression of polar s
cattering and the reduction of inter-valley transition mediated by large-wavevector optical phonons, both of which significantly facilitate charge transport. We also discover that BAs simultaneously has a high hole mobility (2110 cm2/V-s) and electron mobility (1400 cm2/V-s) at room temperature, which is rare in semiconductors. Our findings present a new insight in searching high mobility polar semiconductors, and point to BAs as a promising material for electronic and photovoltaic devices in addition to its predicted high thermal conductivity.
In the hydrodynamic regime, phonons drift with a nonzero collective velocity under a temperature gradient, reminiscent of viscous gas and fluid flow. The study of hydrodynamic phonon transport has spanned over half a century but has been mostly limit
ed to cryogenic temperatures (~1 K) and more recently to low-dimensional materials. Here, we identify graphite as a three-dimensional material that supports phonon hydrodynamics at significantly higher temperatures (~100 K) based on first-principles calculations. In particular, by solving the Boltzmann equation for phonon transport in graphite ribbons, we predict that phonon Poiseuille flow and Knudsen minimum can be experimentally observed above liquid nitrogen temperature. Further, we reveal the microscopic origin of these intriguing phenomena in terms of the dependence of the effective boundary scattering rate on momentum-conserving phonon-phonon scattering processes and the collective motion of phonons. The significant hydrodynamic nature of phonon transport in graphite is attributed to its strong intralayer sp2 hybrid bonding and weak van der Waals interlayer interactions. As a boundary-sensitive transport regime, phonon hydrodynamics opens up new possibilities for thermal management and energy conversion.
Thermally conductive polymers are of fundamental interest and can also be exploited in thermal management applications. Recent studies have shown stretched polymers can achieve high thermal conductivity. However, the transport mechanisms of heat in t
hermally conductive polymers have yet to be elucidated. Here we report a method for scalable fabrication of polyethylene films with a high thermal conductivity of 62 W/m-K. The achieved thermal conductivity is over two orders-of-magnitude greater than that of typical polymers (~0.1 W/m-K), and exceeds those of many metals and ceramics used as traditional heat conductors. Careful structural studies are carried out and reveal that the film consists of nanofibers with crystalline and amorphous regions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we reveal the importance of the amorphous morphology in achieving such high thermal conductivity, rather than simply from enhancements in the degree of crystallinity and crystallite alignment. The amorphous phase reaches a remarkably high thermal conductivity of ~16 W/m-K. Even still, we identify that the presence of this amorphous phase is the dominant factor as the film thermal conductivity is still much lower than the predicted values for bulk single-crystal polyethylene (237 K/m-K). This work lays the foundation for the rational design and synthesis of thermally conductive polymers, and opens up new opportunities for advanced heat management, particularly when flexible, lightweight, chemically inert and electrically insulating thermal conductors are desired.
