Bifunctions of invisible sensors and cloaks in thermal–electric fields

Abstract

The thermal–electric bifunctional devices with isotropic and anisotropic geometries are designed in this paper, which can realize different control functions (invisible sensors and cloaks) of thermal and electric fields. We first theoretically achieve the bifunctions of invisible sensors and cloaks with isotropic and anisotropic geometries. When the material parameters of the core and matrix and the geometric parameters of the core, inner shell, and outer shell are determined, the thermal–electric invisible sensors could be realized. Meanwhile, the invisible sensors will degrade to invisible cloaks as the inner shell material is insulating. The simulations applying the derived material parameters have also been conducted to verify the thermal–electric bifunctions of different circular and confocal elliptical devices. The results show that the thermal–electric bifunctional devices can effectively control the thermal and electric fields, and these devices exhibit perfect performance of the thermal–electric functions of invisible sensors and cloaks. This work presents a new method to realize thermal–electric bifunctional devices and opens a new window to the development of multi-physics field.