skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Remarkable heat conduction mediated by non-equilibrium phonon polaritons

Journal Article · · Nature (London)

Surface waves can lead to intriguing transport phenomena. In particular, surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs), which result from coupling between infrared light and optical phonons, have been predicted to contribute to heat conduction along polar thin films and nanowires. However, experimental efforts so far suggest only very limited SPhP contributions. Through systematic measurements of thermal transport along the same 3C-SiC nanowires with and without a gold coating on the end(s) that serves to launch SPhPs, here we show that thermally excited SPhPs can substantially enhance the thermal conductivity of the uncoated portion of these wires. The extracted pre-decay SPhP thermal conductance is more than two orders of magnitude higher than the Landauer limit predicted on the basis of equilibrium Bose–Einstein distributions. Here, we attribute the notable SPhP conductance to the efficient launching of non-equilibrium SPhPs from the gold-coated portion into the uncoated SiC nanowires, which is strongly supported by the observation that the SPhP-mediated thermal conductivity is proportional to the length of the gold coating(s). The reported discoveries open the door for modulating energy transport in solids by introducing SPhPs, which can effectively counteract the classical size effect in many technologically important films and improve the design of solid-state devices.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Compute and Data Environment for Science (CADES); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Army Research Office (ARO); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231; 1903645; 2114278; W911NF-21-1-0119; W911NF-22-P-0029; N00014-22-1-2035
OSTI ID:
2217733
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Vol. 623, Issue 7986; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (55)

Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
Planar thermal Hall effect of topological bosons in the Kitaev magnet α-RuCl3 journal November 2022
Near-Field Effects in Spatial Coherence of Thermal Sources journal February 1999
Raman Study of Isotope Effects and Phonon Eigenvectors in SiC journal April 1999
Projector augmented-wave method journal December 1994
Far-field coherent thermal emission from polaritonic resonance in individual anisotropic nanoribbons journal March 2019
Phonon Polaritons and Hyperbolic Response in van der Waals Materials journal November 2019
Optical lattice vibrations in finite ionic crystals: III journal December 1968
Thermal Transport in Quasi-1D van der Waals Crystal Ta 2 Pd 3 Se 8 Nanowires: Size and Length Dependence journal February 2018
Water splitting with silicon p–i–n superlattices suspended in solution journal February 2023
Hundred-fold enhancement in far-field radiative heat transfer over the blackbody limit journal September 2018
Electrons and Phonons book January 2001
Polaritons in layered two-dimensional materials journal November 2016
From ultrasoft pseudopotentials to the projector augmented-wave method journal January 1999
Near-field radiative heat transfer between parallel structures in the deep subwavelength regime journal March 2016
Observation of the Magnon Hall Effect journal July 2010
Modeling effective thermal conductivity enhanced by surface waves using the Boltzmann transport equation journal September 2022
Manipulation of surface phonon polaritons in SiC nanorods journal May 2020
Ultra-sensitive thermal conductance measurement of one-dimensional nanostructures enhanced by differential bridge journal February 2012
Dispersion relations for non-radiative surface plasmons on cylinders journal February 1974
Thermal conductivity of individual silicon nanoribbons journal January 2016
Surface Phonon Polaritons Mediated Energy Transfer between Nanoscale Gaps journal August 2009
Synthesis and Magnon Thermal Transport Properties of Spin Ladder Sr14Cu24O41 Microstructures journal June 2020
Nanoscale radiative heat transfer between a small particle and a plane surface journal May 2001
Determination of the phonon dispersion of zinc blende (3C) silicon carbide by inelastic x-ray scattering journal June 2002
Focusing of surface phonon polaritons journal May 2008
Beyond the isotropic-model approximation in the theory of thermal conductivity journal April 1996
Surface phonon-polariton mediated thermal conductivity enhancement of amorphous thin films journal October 2005
Enhanced thermal conduction by surface phonon-polaritons journal September 2020
ShengBTE: A solver of the Boltzmann transport equation for phonons journal June 2014
Measuring Thermal and Thermoelectric Properties of One-Dimensional Nanostructures Using a Microfabricated Device journal September 2003
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Coherent phonon scattering effects on thermal transport in thin semiconductor nanowires journal October 2007
Dispersion relation, propagation length and mode conversion of surface plasmon polaritons in silver double-nanowire systems journal January 2013
Thermal energy transport in a surface phonon-polariton crystal journal January 2016
Experimental Investigation of Radiative Transfer Between Metallic Surfaces at Cryogenic Temperatures journal August 1970
Observation of superdiffusive phonon transport in aligned atomic chains journal April 2021
Semiconductor nanowire lasers journal May 2016
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
First principles phonon calculations in materials science journal November 2015
Measurement of the Intrinsic Thermal Conductivity of a Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube and Its Contact Thermal Resistance with the Substrate journal June 2011
Configurable phonon polaritons in twisted α-MoO3 journal July 2020
Radiative heat transfer in the extreme near field journal December 2015
Coherent emission of light by thermal sources journal March 2002
Two-Dimensional Phonon Polariton Heat Transport journal September 2019
Observation of heat transport mediated by the propagation distance of surface phonon-polaritons over hundreds of micrometers journal September 2022
Efficiency of Launching Highly Confined Polaritons by Infrared Light Incident on a Hyperbolic Material journal August 2017
Anomalous thermal conductivity by surface phonon-polaritons of polar nano thin films due to their asymmetric surrounding media journal February 2013
Electrical and Thermal Transport through Silver Nanowires and Their Contacts: Effects of Elastic Stiffening journal August 2020
Lattice thermal conductivity of silicon from empirical interatomic potentials journal July 2005
Optical antenna thermal emitters journal October 2009
Phonon-engineered extreme thermal conductivity materials journal March 2021
Principles of Nano-Optics book January 2012
Phonon-enhanced light–matter interaction at the nanometre scale journal July 2002
Quantized Thermal Conductance of Nanowires at Room Temperature Due to Zenneck Surface-Phonon Polaritons journal February 2014

Similar Records

Enhancement and Tunability of Near-Field Radiative Heat Transfer Mediated by Surface Plasmon Polaritons in Thin Plasmonic Films
Journal Article · Thu Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Photonics · OSTI ID:2217733

Tunable, Homoepitaxial Hyperbolic Metamaterials Enabled by High Mobility CdO
Journal Article · Wed Nov 09 00:00:00 EST 2022 · Advanced Optical Materials · OSTI ID:2217733

Gate-Tunable Near-Field Heat Transfer
Journal Article · Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 EST 2019 · ACS Photonics · OSTI ID:2217733

Related Subjects