Energy streamlines in near-field radiative heat transfer between hyperbolic metamaterials

Many-body near-field radiative heat transfer: methods, functionalities and applications

Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) governed by evanescent waves, provides a platform to thoroughly understand the transport behavior of nonradiative photons, and also has great potential in high-efficiency energy harvesting and thermal management at the nanoscale. It is more usual in nature that objects participate in heat transfer process in many-body form rather than the frequently-considered two-body scenarios, and the inborn mutual interactions among objects are important to be understood and utilized for practical applications. The last decade has witnessed considerable achievements on many-body NFRHT, ranging from the establishment of different calculation methods to various unprecedented heat transport phenomena that are distinct from two-body systems. In this invited review, we introduce concisely the basic physics of NFRHT, lay out various theoretical methods to deal with many-body NFRHT, and highlight unique functionalities realized in many-body systems and the resulting applications. At last, the key challenges and opportunities of many-body NFRHT in terms of fundamental physics, experimental validations, and potential applications are outlined and discussed.

Fabry-Pérot modes associated with hyperbolic-like dispersion in dielectric photonic crystals and demonstration of a bending angle sensor at microwave frequencies

The dispersion properties of metamaterials and photonic crystals (PhCs) lead to an intensive research in the development of cavity resonators for the confinement of electromagnetic (e-m) radiation. In this work, we investigate the formation of Fabry-Pérot (FP) modes associated with hyperbolic-like dispersion (HLD) regimes in two-dimensional dielectric PhCs. Conventionally, FP modes are formed using an optical etalon, in which electromagnetic (e-m) waves reflecting from a partially reflecting mirror separated by a distance can interfere constructively and form a resonating mode. The FP mode observed in dielectric PhCs is formed due to the interference of cylindrical wavefronts inside the PhC interface at HLD frequencies. The FP modes in PhCs are surface localized, in which maxima/minima of the electric field lies along the air-PhC interface as a standing wave pattern and decays in air medium. Projected bandstructure, Eigen Frequency Contours (EFC), phase and group index calculations are carried out to explain the formation of FP modes in PhCs under different coupling cases. By varying the PhC dimension, FP modes with different spatial profiles are witnessed and the role of source position in exciting specific mode is demonstrated. The observed FP modes in PhCs are compared with the FP mode in an ideal indefinite slab. Based on the FP resonance in PhCs, a sensing device capable of detecting a bending angle less than [Formula: see text] is demonstrated numerically. The FP modes in PhCs are scalable to other parts of e-m spectra so that the bending angle sensing can be extendable to terahertz and optical domains.

Significant Enhancement of Near-Field Electromagnetic Heat Transfer in a Multilayer Structure through Multiple Surface-States Coupling

We show that near-field electromagnetic heat transfer between multilayer thermal bodies can be significantly enhanced by the contributions of surface states at multiple surfaces. As a demonstration, we show that when one of the materials forming the multilayer structure is described by the Drude model, and the other one is a vacuum, at the same gap spacing the resulting heat transfer can be up to 40 times higher as compared to that between two semi-infinite materials described by the same Drude model. Moreover, this system can exhibit a nonmonotonic dependency in its heat transfer coefficient as a function of the middle gap spacing. The enhancement effect in the system persists for realistic materials.

Near-Field Heat Transfer between Multilayer Hyperbolic Metamaterials

We review the near-field radiative heat flux between hyperbolic materials focusing on multilayer hyperbolic meta-materials. We discuss the formation of the hyperbolic bands, the impact of ordering of the multilayer slabs, as well as the impact of the first single layer on the heat transfer. Furthermore, we compare the contribution of surface modes to that of hyperbolic modes. Finally, we also compare the exact results with predictions from effective medium theory.