Circuit approach to photonic heat transport

TL;DR

This paper presents a circuit-based method to analyze photonic heat transfer between metals, accounting for reactive coupling and different temperature regimes, providing a comprehensive understanding of photon-mediated thermal transport.

Contribution

It introduces a simple circuit approach to calculate spectral photon transmission and explores heat transfer in both linear and non-linear regimes.

Findings

Photon transmission depends on impedances and coupling elements.

Heat flow varies with coupling impedance and temperature difference.

Method applies to both small and large temperature gradients.

Abstract

We discuss the heat transfer by photons between two metals coupled by a linear element with a reactive impedance. Using a simple circuit approach, we calculate the spectral power transmitted from one resistor to the other and find that it is determined by the photon transmission coefficient, which depends on the impedances of the metals and the coupling element. We study the total photonic power flow for different coupling impedances, both in the linear regime, where the temperature difference between the metals is small, and in the non-linear regime of large temperature differences.