Near-field heat transfer between gold nanoparticle arrays

TL;DR

This paper investigates near-field radiative heat transfer between gold nanoparticle layers, highlighting how particle size and magnetic contributions influence heat exchange, with implications for nanoscale thermal management.

Contribution

It models gold nanoparticles as coupled electric and magnetic dipoles, incorporating higher-order multipoles to accurately analyze short-distance heat transfer.

Findings

Heat transfer decreases with increasing nanoparticle radius.

Magnetic dipole effects become significant for larger particles.

Oscillatory heat transfer patterns observed with parallel layer arrangements.

Abstract

The radiative heat transfer between gold nanoparticle layers is presented using the coupled dipole method. Gold nanoparticles are modelled as effective electric and magnetic dipoles interacting via electromagnetic fluctuations. The effect of higher-order multipoles is implemented in the expression of electric polarizability to calculate the interactions at short distances. Our findings show that the near-field radiation reduces as the radius of the nanoparticles is increased. Also, the magnetic dipole contribution to the heat exchange becomes more important for larger particles. When one layer is displayed in parallel with respect to the other layer, the near-field heat transfer exhibits oscillatory-like features due to the influence of the individual nanostructures. Further details about the effect of the nanoparticles size are also discussed.