Near-field radiative heat transfer in the dual nanoscale regime between polaritonic membranes

Abstract

The enhancement and attenuation of near-field radiative heat transfer between polaritonic SiC, SiN and SiO2 subwavelength membranes is analyzed. Fluctuational electrodynamics simulations combined with a modal analysis show that all membranes support corner and edge modes, which can induce a large 5.1-fold enhancement for SiC and a 2.1-fold attenuation for SiO2 of the heat transfer coefficient with respect to that between infinite surfaces. The enhancement or attenuation is directly related to material losses which reduce the density of available electromagnetic states between the membranes.