Tunable Radiative Thermal Rectifiers : Toward Thermal Logical Circuits

E. Nefzaoui (1) , Younes Ezzahri (1) , Karl Joulain (1) , Jérémie Drevillon (1)

1 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]

Thermal rectification can be defined as an asymmetry in the heat flux when the temperature difference between two interacting thermal reservoirs is reversed. We present a thermal rectifier concept based on far-field radiative heat transfer. The device is composed of two opaque thermal baths 1 and 2 at temperatures T 1 and T 2 respectively and exchanging heat through thermal radiation. The two interacting bodies are made of spectrally selective photonic structures with different thermo-optical properties. First, we show that the mismatch between the two structures optical properties temperature dependence is at the origin of thermal rectification. Then, we show that rectification ratio of a given device can be simply tuned with a few parameters such as operating temperature, the emission peak position and width. Presented results pave the way to the use of widely studied photonic structures in thermal management application and thermal logical circuits development.

Mots clés: Thermal management; Thermal insulation; Thermal storage; Energy conversion and storage; Energy; efficiency Thermophysical properties; Nano/Micro scale measurement and simulation; Photon; phonon and electron; transport; Radiation; Cryogenics; Heat transfer enhancement

Domaines: Thermique [physics.class-ph]; Optique / photonique; Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

E. Nefzaoui, Younes Ezzahri, Karl Joulain, Jérémie Drevillon. Tunable Radiative Thermal Rectifiers : Toward Thermal Logical Circuits. The 15th International Heat Transfer Conference (IHTC-15), Aug 2015, Kyoto, Japan. ⟨hal-01546293⟩