Enhancement of near-field radiative heat transfer via multiple coupling of surface waves with graphene plasmon

Ting Zhou,Nian-Hua Liu,Qing-Hua Liao,Jiang-Tao Liu,Tong-Biao Wang,Chen-Cai Song,Wen-Xing Liu,Tian-Bao Yu

doi:10.1063/1.4984925

Abstract

Coated silicon carbide (SiC) thin films can efficiently enhance near-field radiative heat transfer among metamaterials. In this study, the near-field heat transfer among graphene–SiC–metamaterial (GSM) multilayer structures was theoretically investigated. Graphene plasmons could be coupled both with electric surface plasmons supported by the metamaterial and with symmetric and anti-symmetric surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) supported by SiC. The heat transfer among GSM structures was considerably improved compared to that among SiC-coated metamaterials when the chemical potential of graphene was not very high. In addition, the near-field heat transfer was enhanced among SiC–graphene–metamaterial multilayer structures, though the heat transfer among these structures was less than that among GSMs owing to the absence of coupling between symmetric SPhPs and graphene plasmons. Hence, heat transfer could be flexibly tuned by modifying the chemical potential of graphene in both configurations. These results provide a basis for active control of the near-field radiative heat transfer in the far-infrared region.

Highlights

Polder and van Hove[1] first predicted that the heat transfer between two bodies at small distances could be greater than blackbody radiation, and since this pioneering work near-field radiative heat transfer has gained increasing research interest both theoretically[2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] and experimentally.[10,11,12,13] Heat transfer among closely-spaced bodies can drastically surpass the well-knownStefan–Boltzmann law by orders of magnitude
When the silicon carbide (SiC) is sufficiently thick, there is almost no difference between the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of the MSG structures and that of the graphene-covered SiC structures. This is because the SiC film behaves as a semi-infinite medium that will inhibit the contributions of the magnetic SPs (MSPs) and electric SPs (ESPs) excited by the metamaterials
The MSPs, are independent of the graphene influence and, in addition, the position and amplitude for the symmetric surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) do not vary with the chemical potential, which is different than the results of the GSM structure case

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Polder and van Hove[1] first predicted that the heat transfer between two bodies at small distances could be greater than blackbody radiation, and since this pioneering work near-field radiative heat transfer has gained increasing research interest both theoretically[2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] and experimentally.[10,11,12,13] Heat transfer among closely-spaced bodies can drastically surpass the well-known. Basu et al.[8] have investigated near-field radiative transfer among metamaterials coated with SiC thin films where, for such structures, electric and magnetic SPs can be excited by the metamaterials and surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) can be excited by SiC in different spectral regions. The SPs supported by graphene can cover the frequency range from terahertz to the near-infrared regions, and the frequency of the SPs can be tuned by altering the graphene chemical potential Considering these novel characteristics, scholars have studied near-field heat transfer among graphene-based systems.[5,7,40,41,42]. The heat transfer of the GSM structures could be improved over that of a SiC-coated metamaterial because the SPs supported by graphene could couple with electric SPs (ESPs) supported by the metamaterials and with the SPhPs from SiC. The heat transfer among the SGM structures was less than that among GSM structures under the same conditions, which can be attributed to the absence of coupling between graphene plasmons and symmetric SPhPs

THEORETICAL MODEL

RADIATIVE HEAT TRANSFER BETWEEN TWO GSM STRUCTURES

RADIATIVE HEAT TRANSFER BETWEEN TWO SGM STRUCTURES

CONCLUSIONS