Thermal Hyper-Conductivity: radiative energy transport in hyperbolic media

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical framework showing that hyperbolic metamaterials can dramatically enhance radiative thermal conductivity due to their unique photonic density of states, potentially rivaling non-radiative heat transfer.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical model for radiative thermal conductivity in hyperbolic media, highlighting the super-singularity effect on heat transport.

Findings

Radiative thermal conductivity in hyperbolic media can be significantly enhanced.

Hyperbolic metamaterials can have radiative heat transfer comparable to non-radiative mechanisms.

The super-singularity of photonic states is key to this enhancement.

Abstract

We develop a theoretical description of radiative thermal conductivity in hyperbolic metamaterials. We demonstrate a dramatic enhancement of the radiative thermal transport due to the super-singularity of the photonic density of states in hyperbolic media, leading to the radiative heat conductivity which can be comparable to the non-radiative contribution.