A photon thermal diode

Zhen Chen, Carlaton Wong, Sean Lubner, Shannon Yee, John Miller, Wanyoung Jang, Corey Hardin, Anthony Fong, Javier E. Garay and Chris Dames ()
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Zhen Chen: University of California
Carlaton Wong: University of California
Sean Lubner: University of California
Shannon Yee: University of California
John Miller: University of California
Wanyoung Jang: University of California
Corey Hardin: University of California
Anthony Fong: University of California
Javier E. Garay: University of California
Chris Dames: University of California

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract A thermal diode is a two-terminal nonlinear device that rectifies energy carriers (for example, photons, phonons and electrons) in the thermal domain, the heat transfer analogue to the familiar electrical diode. Effective thermal rectifiers could have an impact on diverse applications ranging from heat engines to refrigeration, thermal regulation of buildings and thermal logic. However, experimental demonstrations have lagged far behind theoretical proposals. Here we present the first experimental results for a photon thermal diode. The device is based on asymmetric scattering of ballistic energy carriers by pyramidal reflectors. Recent theoretical work has predicted that this ballistic mechanism also requires a nonlinearity in order to yield asymmetric thermal transport, a requirement of all thermal diodes arising from the second Law of Thermodynamics, and realized here using an ‘inelastic thermal collimator’ element. Experiments confirm both effects: with pyramids and collimator the thermal rectification is 10.9±0.8%, while without the collimator no rectification is detectable (

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6446

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