Graphene-based three-body amplification of photon heat tunneling

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a three-layer graphene configuration significantly amplifies photon heat tunneling at specific conditions, offering potential for advanced nanoscale thermal management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel three-layer graphene setup that enhances photon heat tunneling through mode coupling, independent of the middle layer's thickness.

Findings

Heat flux peaks at plasmon frequency in two-layer setup.

Three-layer configuration amplifies heat tunneling under specific conditions.

Amplification is independent of the middle layer's thickness.

Abstract

We consider a three slabs configuration including two non-doped single layer graphene on insulating silicon dioxide (G/SiO2) substrates and one non-doped suspended single layer graphene (SG). The suspended layer is placed between two G/SiO2 layers. Without SG layer, the heat flux has maximum at Plasmon frequency supported by the G/SiO2 slabs. In three slabs configuration, the photon heat tunneling is amplified between two G/SiO2 layers significantly, only for specific range of vacuum gap between SG layer and G/SiO2 layers and Plasmon frequency, due to the coupling of modes between each G/SiO2 layer and SG layer. Since, the SG layer is a single atomic layer, the photon heat tunneling assisted by this configuration does not depend on the thickness of middle layer and in consequence, it can enable novel applications for nanoscale thermal management.