Radiative heat transfer with a cylindrical waveguide decays logarithmically slow

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that radiative heat transfer between nanoparticles near a conducting nanowire decays logarithmically with distance, enabling efficient thermal energy transfer over large separations with minimal loss.

Contribution

It reveals the logarithmic decay law of heat transfer in nanoparticle-wire systems and provides an analytical formula matching numerical results across parameters.

Findings

Heat transfer decays logarithmically with distance.

Nanowires act as efficient waveguides for thermal energy.

Significant heat transfer at large separations comparable to small nanoparticle gaps.

Abstract

Radiative heat transfer between two far-field-separated nanoparticles placed close to a perfectly conducting nanowire decays logarithmically slow with the interparticle distance. This makes a cylinder an excellent waveguide which can transfer thermal electromagnetic energy to arbitrary large distances with almost no loss. It leads to a dramatic increase of the heat transfer, so that, for almost any (large) separation, the transferred energy can be as large as for isolated particles separated by a few hundred nanometers. A phenomenologically found analytical formula accurately describes the numerical results over a wide range of parameters.