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Thermal rectification is an asymmetric heat transfer process where directionally dependent transport occurs along a given axis. In this work, geometric parameters that govern thermal rectification in solids composed of various semiconducting materials were investigated utilizing metalattice data for seven materials with pore sizes ranging between 2 and 30 nm. Using numerical simulation, thermal rectification was calculated at different thermal biases in single material systems, including silicon, cubic boron nitride, and diamond, among others. The largest thermal rectification for each material was exhibited in bilayer sample stacks that were thermally matched (i.e., the thermal resistance of each layer in the stack is equal in either forward or reverse direction). Of the materials tested, diamond provided the highest thermal rectification for all cases, with its best case achieving a thermal rectification of 57.2%. This novel thermal functionality will find application in advanced applications for temperature regulation, including resonator systems where thermal effects may significantly alter and/or degrade performance.
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Dual-mode solid-state thermal rectification
Abstract Thermal rectification is an exotic thermal transport phenomenon which allows heat to transfer in one direction but block the other. We demonstrate an unusual dual-mode solid-state thermal rectification effect using a heterogeneous “irradiated-pristine” polyethylene nanofiber junction as a nanoscale thermal diode, in which heat flow can be rectified in both directions by changing the working temperature. For the nanofiber samples measured here, we observe a maximum thermal rectification factor as large as ~50%, which only requires a small temperature bias of <10 K. The tunable nanoscale thermal diodes with large rectification and narrow temperature bias open up new possibilities for developing advanced thermal management, energy conversion and, potentially thermophononic technologies.
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- PAR ID:
- 10187629
- Publisher / Repository:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-1723
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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