Long-range super-Planckian heat transfer between nanoemitters in a resonant cavity

Abstract

We study radiative heat transfer between two nanoemitters placed inside different types of closed cavities by means of a fluctuational-electrodynamics approach. We highlight a very sharp dependence of this transfer on cavity width, and connect this to the matching between the material-induced resonance and the resonant modes of the cavity. In resonant configurations, this allows for an energy-flux amplification of several orders of magnitude with respect to the one exchanged between two emitters in vacuum as well as between two black-bodies, even at separation distances much larger than the thermal wavelength. On the other hand, variations of the cavity width by a few percent allow a reduction of the flux by several orders of magnitude and even a transition to inhibition compared to the vacuum scenario. Our results pave the way to the design of thermal waveguides for the long-distance transport of super-Planckian heat flux and selective heat transfer in many-body system.