Casimir Friction and Near-field Radiative Heat Transfer in Graphene Structures

Abstract

Abstract The dependence of the Casimir friction force between a graphene sheet and a (amorphous) SiO2 substrate on the drift velocity of the electrons in the graphene sheet is studied. It is shown that the Casimir friction is strongly enhanced for the drift velocity above the threshold velocity when the friction is determined by the resonant excitation of the surface phonon–polaritons in the SiO2 substrate and the electron–hole pairs in graphene. The theory agrees well with the experimental data for the current–voltage dependence for unsuspended graphene on the SiO2 substrate. The theories of the Casimir friction and the near-field radiative energy transfer are used to study the heat generation and dissipation in graphene due to the interaction with phonon–polaritons in the (amorphous) SiO2 substrate and acoustic phonons in graphene. For suspended graphene, the energy transfer coefficient at nanoscale gap is ~ three orders of magnitude larger than the radiative heat transfer coefficient of the blackbody radiation limit.