Thermal Hyperbolic Metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper investigates the enhanced near-field thermal energy transfer enabled by hyperbolic metamaterials, demonstrating their potential for high-temperature thermal management and energy conversion in the infrared spectrum.

Contribution

It introduces practical hyperbolic metamaterials for thermal energy transfer, showing their effectiveness despite material losses and finite size effects, and extends applications to high-temperature thermophotovoltaics.

Findings

Super-Planckian thermal transfer observed in hyperbolic metamaterials.

Effective thermal transfer persists despite material losses and finite unit cell size.

High-temperature hyperbolic metamaterials suitable for thermophotovoltaic applications.

Abstract

We explore the near-field radiative thermal energy transfer properties of hyperbolic metamaterials. The presence of unique electromagnetic states in a broad bandwidth leads to super-planckian thermal energy transfer between metamaterials separated by a nano-gap. We consider practical phonon-polaritonic metamaterials for thermal engineering in the mid-infrared range and show that the effect exists in spite of the losses, absorption and finite unit cell size. For thermophotovoltaic energy conversion applications requiring energy transfer in the near-infrared range we introduce high temperature hyperbolic metamaterials based on plasmonic materials with a high melting point. Our work paves the way for practical high temperature radiative thermal energy transfer applications of hyperbolic metamaterials.