Transient behavior of heat transport in a thermal switch

TL;DR

This paper investigates the transient heat transport dynamics in a nanoscale thermal switch, revealing initial bidirectional flow, oscillations, and eventual steady-state heat flow from hot to cold, influenced by switch-on energy.

Contribution

It introduces a nonperturbative approach using nonequilibrium Green's functions to analyze transient heat currents in a thermal switch, highlighting behaviors not captured by steady-state models.

Findings

Initial heat flow into both leads with oscillations

Transient oscillations decay, leading to steady heat flow from hot to cold

Long-time behavior matches Landauer formula predictions

Abstract

We study the time-dependent transport of heat in a nanoscale thermal switch. The switch consists of left and right leads that are initially uncoupled. During switch-on the coupling between the leads is abruptly turned on. We use the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism and numerically solve the constructed Dyson equation to determine the nonperturbative heat current. At the transient regime we find that the current initially flows simultaneously into both of the leads and then afterwards oscillates between flowing into and out of the leads. At later times the oscillations decay away and the current settles into flowing from the hotter to the colder lead. We find the transient behavior to be influenced by the extra energy added during switch-on. Such a transient behavior also exists even when there is no temperature difference between the leads. The current at the long-time limit approaches the steady-state value independently calculated from the Landauer formula.