Photonic thermal conduction by infrared plasmonic resonators in semiconductor nanowires

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel semiconductor nanowire system with embedded infrared plasmonic resonators that enables significant photonic thermal conduction, potentially surpassing phononic and electronic heat transport in solids.

Contribution

It proposes a practical nanowire design that leverages near-field electromagnetic coupling for efficient photonic thermal transport, a concept not previously demonstrated at this scale.

Findings

Photonic thermal conductivity can reach about 1 W/m·K in the proposed system.

The nanowire system outperforms plasmonic particles in isotropic environments.

Photonic heat transport can exceed phononic and electronic contributions in the material.

Abstract

Photons typically do not contribute to thermal transport within a solid due to their low energy density and tendency to be quickly absorbed. We propose a practical material system - infrared plasmonic resonators embedded in a semiconductor nanowire - that leverages near-field electromagnetic coupling to achieve photonic thermal transport comparable to the electronic and phononic contributions. We analytically show photonic thermal conductivities up to about 1 W m-1 K-1 for 10 nm diameter Si and InAs nanowires containing repeated resonators at 500 K. The nanowire system outperforms plasmonic particles in isotropic environments and presents a pathway for photonic thermal transport to exceed that of phonons and electrons.