Metasurface-mediated anisotropic radiative heat transfer between nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical model showing how anisotropic metasurfaces, specifically graphene strip arrays, can significantly enhance and control near-field radiative heat transfer between nanoparticles through surface plasmon polaritons.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel theory for NFRHT between nanoparticles mediated by anisotropic metasurfaces, highlighting regulation capabilities via surface plasmon polaritons.

Findings

NFRHT can be significantly amplified near graphene strip metasurfaces.

Heat transfer can be regulated over several orders of magnitude.

Anisotropic SPPs enable new channels for near-field energy transport.

Abstract

Metasurfaces, the two-dimensional (2D) counterpart of metamaterials, have recently attracted a great attention due to their amazing properties such as negative refraction, hyperbolic dispersion, manipulation of the evanescent spectrum. In this work, we propose a theory model for the near field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between two nanoparticles in the presence of an anisotropic metasurface. Specifically, we set the metasurface as an array of graphene strips (GS) since it is an ideal platform to implement any metasurface topology, ranging from isotropic to hyperbolic propagation. We show that the NFRHT between two nanoparticles can not only be significantly amplified when they are placed in proximity of the GS, but also be regulated over several orders of magnitude. In this configuration, the anisotropic surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported by the GS are excited and provide a new channel for the near-field energy transport. We analyze how the conductance between two nanoparticles depends on the orientation, the structure parameters and the chemical potential of the GS, on the particle-surface or the particle-surface distances by clearly identifying the characteristics of the anisotropic SPPs such as dispersion relations, propagation length and decay length. Our findings provide a powerful way to regulate the energy transport in the particle systems, meanwhile in turn, open up a way to explore the anisotropic optical properties of the metasurface based on the measured heat transfer properties.