Thermal transistor: Heat flux switching and modulating

TL;DR

This paper systematically studies thermal transistors in one and two dimensions, demonstrating improved efficiency and proposing designs based on coupled anharmonic lattices, with potential experimental realization using nanotubes.

Contribution

It introduces methods to significantly enhance the efficiency of one-dimensional thermal transistors and extends the design to two-dimensional systems using coupled anharmonic lattices.

Findings

Improved efficiency of 1D thermal transistors.

Design of 2D thermal transistors with coupled lattices.

Potential experimental realization with nanotubes.

Abstract

Thermal transistor is an efficient heat control device which can act as a heat switch as well as a heat modulator. In this paper, we study systematically one-dimensional and two-dimensional thermal transistors. In particular, we show how to improve significantly the efficiency of the one-dimensional thermal transistor. The study is also extended to the design of two-dimensional thermal transistor by coupling different anharmonic lattices such as the Frenkel-Kontorova and the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam lattices. Analogy between anharmonic lattices and single-walled carbon nanotube is drawn and possible experimental realization with multi-walled nanotube is suggested.