# 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.

## Key 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.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1902.07603