Analogies between optical propagation and heat diffusion: Applications to micro-cavities, gratings and cloaks

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed analogy between optical propagation and heat diffusion in complex media, enabling the use of optical numerical tools for thermal problems and exploring applications like micro-cavities, gratings, and cloaks.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive derivation of the analogy and extends optical formalisms to heat conduction in multilayered structures, highlighting applications and limitations.

Findings

Optical and thermal parameters can be related in anisotropic media.

Numerical optical codes can be adapted for heat diffusion problems.

Applications include micro-cavities, gratings, and cloaking in heat conduction.

Abstract

A new analogy between optical propagation and heat diffusion in heterogeneous anisotropic media has been proposed recently [S. Guenneau, C. Amra, and D. Veynante, Optics Express Vol. 20, 8207-8218 (2012)]. A detailed derivation of this unconventional correspondence is presented and developed. In time harmonic regime, all thermal parameters are related to optical ones in artificial metallic media, thus making possible to use numerical codes developed for optics. Then the optical admittance formalism is extended to heat conduction in multilayered structures. The concepts of planar micro-cavities, diffraction gratings, and planar transformation optics for heat conduction are addressed. Results and limitations of the analogy are emphasized.