A Novel Design of a Radiative Thermal Transistor

Thermal logic devices are of significant current interest for thermal management and have been extensively explored theoretically. However, there has been limited experimental progress on such devices. Here, we describe a novel radiative thermal transistor consisting of sub-micrometer thick membranes combined with a phase transition modulator whose dielectric properties can be controlled via temperature. Specifically, we show that when the modulator made of vanadium oxide (VO_X), which is analogous to the gate electrode of a transistor, undergoes a metal-insulator transition, it affects the radiative heat transfer between the emitter and receiver membranes. A thermal modulator, which is analogous to the source and drain electrodes of a transistor, enables control of radiative heat flow between a hot emitter and a cold receiver with a switching ratio of up to a factor of three. In contrast to past thermal transistors, the switching time of our nanomembrane-based thermal transistor is much more rapid (hundreds of milliseconds compared to minutes) due to the small thermal mass of our modulator. Our experiments are also complemented by detailed calculations that highlight the mechanism of thermal modulation. We anticipate that the advances reported here will open new opportunities to design thermal circuits or thermal logic devices for advanced heat flow control.<br/>&lt;quillbot-extension-portal&gt;&lt;/quillbot-extension-portal&gt;