Near-field radiative heat transfer between topological insulators via surface plasmon polaritons

Ruiyi Liu,Lixin Ge,Biyuan Wu,Zheng Cui,Xiaohu Wu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103408

Abstract

SummaryRecently, thanks to its excellent opto-electronic properties, two-dimension topological insulator not only has attracted broad interest in fields such as tunable detectors and nano-electronics but also shall yield more interesting prospect in thermal management, energy conversion, and so on. In this work, the excellent near-filed radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) resulting from monolayer topological insulator (Bi2Se3) is demonstrated. The NFRHT of this system is mainly dominated by the strong coupling effect of the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) between two Bi2Se3 sheets. Moreover, the non-monotonic dependence of the Fermi energy of Bi2Se3 on NFRHT is then discovered. It is indicated that the system can provide great thermal adjustability by controlling the Fermi energy, achieving a modulation factor of heat flux as high as 98.94%. Finally, the effect of substrate on the NFRHT is also explored. This work provides a promising pathway for the highly efficient thermal management.

Highlights

When two objects are brought to the micro/nano scale separations, the near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) can exceed the Stefan-Boltzmann law of black-body radiation by several orders of magnitude (Polder and Van, 1971; Joulain et al, 2005; Kim et al, 2015; Biehs et al, 2010; Cuevas and Garcia-Vidal, 2018), due to the tunneling effect of evanescent modes
It was demonstrated that the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) or surface phonon polaritons, supported by 2D materials, can enhance observably the photon tunneling between two objects, thereby improving the performance of the nearfiled radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) (Wu and Liu, 2020; Yan et al, 2013; Fang et al, 2014; Ilic et al, 2012b; Liu et al, 2021; Peng et al, 2015)
For a nanoscale separation of 10 nm, the heat flux of Bi2Se3 sheets can be more than ten times that of monolayer graphene and fifty times for bulk indium tin oxide (ITO)

Summary

Introduction

When two objects are brought to the micro/nano scale separations, the near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) can exceed the Stefan-Boltzmann law of black-body radiation by several orders of magnitude (Polder and Van, 1971; Joulain et al, 2005; Kim et al, 2015; Biehs et al, 2010; Cuevas and Garcia-Vidal, 2018), due to the tunneling effect of evanescent modes. It was demonstrated that the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) or surface phonon polaritons, supported by 2D materials, can enhance observably the photon tunneling between two objects, thereby improving the performance of the NFRHT (Wu and Liu, 2020; Yan et al, 2013; Fang et al, 2014; Ilic et al, 2012b; Liu et al, 2021; Peng et al, 2015). To the best of our knowledge, the study of NFRHT between 2D bismuth-based topological insulators (Bi2Se3) has not been conducted yet

Results

Discussion

Conclusion