Phonon Scattering Engineered Unconventional Thermal Radiation at the Nanoscale

Abstract

We show that engineering phonon scattering, such as through isotope enrichment and temperature modulation, offers the potential to achieve unconventional radiative heat transfer between two boron arsenide bulks at the nanoscale, which holds promise in applications for nonlinear thermal circuit components. A heat flux regulator is proposed, where the temperature window for stabilized heat flux exhibits a wide tunability through phonon scattering engineering. Additionally, we propose several other nonlinear thermal radiative devices, including a negative differential thermal conductance device, a temperature regulator, and a thermal diode, all benefiting from the design space enabled by isotope and temperature engineering of the phonon linewidth. Our work highlights the capability of temperature and isotope engineering in designing and optimizing nonlinear radiative thermal devices and demonstrates the potential of phonon engineering in thermal radiative transport.