A magnetic thermal switch for heat management at the nanoscale

TL;DR

This paper introduces a magnetic thermal switch at the nanoscale that uses magnetic fields to control heat flow operations like switching and splitting without changing voltage or thermal biases.

Contribution

It demonstrates a novel magnetic field-controlled thermal management device capable of programmable heat flow operations at the nanoscale.

Findings

Magnetic field inversion switches heat flow states.

Device performs heat current reversal and splitting.

Operates without altering voltage or thermal biases.

Abstract

In a multi-terminal setup, when time-reversal symmetry is broken by a magnetic field, the heat flows can be managed by designing a device with programmable Boolean behavior. We show that such device can be used to implement operations like on/off switching, reversal, selected splitting and swap of the heat currents. For each feature, the switching from one working condition to the other is obtained by inverting the magnetic field. This offers interesting opportunities of conceiving a programmable setup, whose operation is controlled by an external parameter (the magnetic field) without need to alter voltage and thermal biases applied to the system. Our results, generic within the framework of linear response, are illustrated by means of a three-terminal electronic interferometer model.