Near-field radiative heat transfer between topological insulators via surface plasmon polaritons

Recently, thanks to its excellent opto-electronic properties, two-dimension topological insulator not only has attracted broad interest in fields such as tunable detectors and nano-electronics but also shall yield more interesting prospect in thermal management, energy conversion, and so on. In this work, the excellent near-filed radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) resulting from monolayer topological insulator (Bi₂Se₃) is demonstrated. The NFRHT of this system is mainly dominated by the strong coupling effect of the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) between two Bi₂Se₃ sheets. Moreover, the non-monotonic dependence of the Fermi energy of Bi₂Se₃ on NFRHT is then discovered. It is indicated that the system can provide great thermal adjustability by controlling the Fermi energy, achieving a modulation factor of heat flux as high as 98.94%. Finally, the effect of substrate on the NFRHT is also explored. This work provides a promising pathway for the highly efficient thermal management.