Multiple surface polariton-enhanced near-field radiative heat transfer between layered graphene/porous SiC terminals

Abstract

Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between two separated terminals can enhance the heat flux determined by blackbody theory by several orders of magnitude. In this work, we study the NFRHT between two terminals made of periodic multilayered graphene/porous silicon carbide (SiC), specifically focusing on the multiple surface polariton effects. The two terminals are parallel and separated by a vacuum gap. The porous SiC-supported surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) and hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPhPs), and their coupling with the graphene-supported surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) leads to apparent enhancement of the radiative heat flux between the gapped terminals. The underlying mechanism of multiple polaritons for amplifying the near-field heat flux is revealed through the energy transmission coefficients for different scenarios. Results show that the heat flux between the multilayered terminals is a combination result of the multiple surface polaritons and the medium loss. When the vacuum gap is set as d = 10 nm, the heat flux between the 50-layered terminals is 1.48 times that between the single-layered terminals. We demonstrate that the NFRHT can be dynamically controlled and optimized by appropriately engineering the number of layers, the chemical potential of graphene, and the porosity and thickness of the porous SiC sheet. This work paves an alternative controllable structure for strengthening and regulating NFRHT and thus has potential applications in micro-nanoscale thermal management.