Resonant enhancement of the near-field radiative heat transfer in nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a static magnetic field can tune and significantly enhance near-field radiative heat transfer between a nanoparticle and a surface by exploiting magneto-plasmon resonances.

Contribution

It demonstrates the magnetic field-induced splitting of plasmon resonances and their overlap with surface phonon-polaritons to achieve heat transfer enhancement.

Findings

Heat transfer can be increased by two orders of magnitude.

Magnetic field tuning shifts plasmon resonances.

Resonance overlap leads to enhanced near-field heat transfer.

Abstract

We numerically study the tuning of the radiative heat transfer between a spherical InSb nanoparticle in the vicinity of a flat SiC surface assisted by a static magnetic field. By changing the value of the applied magnetic field, the dielectric function of the nanosphere becomes anisotropic due to the excitation of magneto-plasmons. In the dipolar approximation, the plasmon resonance of the particle splits into two additional satellite resonances that shift to higher and lower frequencies as the field increases. When one of the particle resonances overlaps with the phonon-polariton frequency of the SiC surface, an enhancement of the heat transfer of two orders of magnitude is obtained. To understand the tuning of the radiative heat transfer, we present a detailed analysis of the nature of the modes that can be excited (surface, bulk, and hyperbolic).