Phonon-Polaritons enhance near field thermal transfer across the phase transition of VO2

Pieter van Zwol (1) , Karl Joulain (2) , Philippe Ben-Abdallah (3) , Joël Chevrier (1)

1 NEEL - NOF - Nano-Optique et Forces
2 PPrime [Poitiers] - Institut Pprime [UPR 3346]
3 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Naphel

We show numerically that near field heat flux can be modulated by orders of magnitude upon switching from the metallic to the insulating phase of vanadium dioxide. Furthermore the resonant phonon polariton interaction for the insulating phase enhances near field thermal transfer by 3 orders of magnitude. The effect should therefore be measureable with existing experimental setups and could find broad applications for systems where thermal control at the nanoscale is required.

Keywords: phase change materials; near-field; nanoscale heat transfer

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]; Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Optics / Photonic; Micro and nanotechnologies/Microelectronics; Electromagnetism

Pieter van Zwol, Karl Joulain, Philippe Ben-Abdallah, Joël Chevrier. Phonon-Polaritons enhance near field thermal transfer across the phase transition of VO2. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2011, 84 (16), pp.161413. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.84.161413⟩. ⟨hal-00649190⟩