Performance investigation of nanoscale thermal cloak by the perforated silicon film

In recent years, nanoscale thermal cloak, as a representative of nanoscale heat flux regulation devices, has attracted a lot of attention from researchers. However, the existing design methods are relatively complicated and all adopt constant temperature boundaries, the temperature changes constantly in the real environment, which greatly hinders its engineering applications. In this paper, inspired by phonon localization theory, we construct a nanoscale thermal cloak by a perforated silicon membrane and evaluate its cloaking performance and dynamic response. Results show that when the perforated area is fixed, the more the number of holes, the better the cloaking performance. In addition, the nanoscale thermal cloak still exhibits good cloaking performance in the dynamic environment. Finally, the cloaking mechanism is analyzed by calculating the phonon density of states (PDOS) and mode participation rate (MPR), and the reduction of thermal conductivity in the functional region is attributed to phonon localization.     

Nanoscale thermal cloaking by in-situ annealing silicon membrane

With the advent of thermal metamaterials, many new thermal functionalities have been proposed, like thermal cloaking, concentrating, etc. However, these thermal functionalities are based on the transformation thermotics or scattering cancellation technique, which, derived from Fourier's law, cannot apply to the micro-/nanoscale counterparts. In this paper, we design a nanoscale thermal cloak based on a crystalline silicon (Si) membrane and investigate the in-plane phonon transport via non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulation by in-situ tuning the thermal conductivity of the thermal cloak from crystalline Si to amorphous Si. The two-dimensional temperature profile is obtained, and the thermal cloaking effect is evaluated by the ratio of heat flux. By analyzing the phonon density of state (PDOS) and the mode participation ratio (MPR), the mechanism can be attributed to the phonon localization in the annealed cloaking region. The proposed nanoscale thermal cloak by in-situ tuned thermal conductivity, may trigger the development of nanoscale thermal functionalities and open avenues for and thermal management for nano-photonics and nano-electronics.     

Examination of the Thermal Cloaking Effectiveness with Layered Engineering Materials

The concentrically layered thermal cloaks with isotropic materials could realize the equivalent thermal cloaking effect with Pendry's cloak,while the effectiveness is scarcely investigated quantitatively.Here we examine the cloaking effectiveness quantitatively by evaluating the standard deviation of the temperature difference between the simulated plane with the layered thermal cloak and Pendry's thermal cloak.The design rules for the isotropic materials in terms of thermal conductivity and layer thickness are presented.The present method could quantitatively evaluate the cloaking effectiveness,and could open avenues for analyzing the cloaking effect,detecting the(anti-) cloaks,etc.     

基于变换热力学的三维任意形状热斗篷设计

在变换热力学的基础上,通过坐标变换的方法,推导出三维任意形状热斗篷导热系数的通解表达式,并进行了全波仿真验证.结果表明:热流均能绕过保护区域流出,保护区域的温度保持不变,而且热斗篷外的温度场并没有破坏,具有很好的热保护和热隐身的效果.这一方法把变换热力学从二维拓展到三维,具有普遍的适用性.同时,这种技术为热流流动路径和目标温度场的控制奠定了理论基础,在微芯片、电动机的保护以及目标热隐身上有潜在应用.     

While rotating while cloaking

Invisible optical and thermal cloaking have been explored as the typical demonstrations of the transformation optics and thermotics theory. However, the existing cloaks are realized by only one-coordinate transformation, and the cloaking layout, i.e. the form of electromagnetic wave/heat passing around the invisible region, is single for a long time. Here, we propose a new rotated thermal cloak which can unify the conventional cloaking and rotating together, and realize the while-rotating–while-cloaking effect. The required anisotropic thermal conductivity tensor is deduced from the new geometric mapping. Though rotated, the heat flux can be tuned around the central invisible region perfectly by the proposed rotated thermal cloak. The underlying physics is explored by comprehensive analysis of the distribution of the thermal conductivity tensor, which is further compared with those of the conventional cloak and rotator. The experimental feasibility is also discussed by validating the practical while-rotating–while-cloaking effect through a proof-of-concept design. The proposed rotated thermal cloak is expected to extend the possibility of cloaking scheme, and open avenues for the multiple coordinate transformation in counterpart physical fields, like optics, electrics, acoustics, magnetics, mechanics, etc.     

非均匀背景中任意柱状热斗篷的研究与设计

在变换热力学的基础上,通过坐标变换的方法严格推导出在层状背景和渐变背景下二维任意形状热斗篷导热系数的通解表达式,并在此基础上设计出非均匀背景下二维非共形热斗篷.全波仿真结果表明:在不同背景下,热流均能绕过保护区域流出,保护区域的温度保持不变,而且热斗篷外的温度场并没有破坏,具有很好的热保护和热隐身的效果.这一方法考虑到背景的复杂性,更加贴近工程实际应用,为未来灵活控制热流传递提供了一种可行的方法,对目标热隐身和热保护具有重要借鉴意义.     

Quasi-invisible thermal cloak based on homogenous materials

Invisible thermal cloak, which cancels distortions of temperature distribution caused by objects, has many potential applications in thermal engineering. In this letter, we theoretically proposed and simulatively verified a new design method for quasi-invisible thermal cloak. Different from conventional transformation thermodynamics that focus on complete invisibility, our method only decreases the effective scale of objects to small enough and realizes a quasi-invisible cloaking effect in thermal conduction regime. However, this quasi-invisible cloak has the same effect as that of invisible thermal cloak in practical engineering. More important, our cloak is easy to construct by natural materials due to its homogenous thermal properties and can cloak objects with different shapes and properties. These characters make the clock more comfortable for engineering applications.     

单晶硅薄膜法向热导率分子动力学研究

采用非平衡分子动力学方法（NEMD）研究了平均温度为 500K、厚度为 2～32nm的单晶硅薄膜的法向热导率。模拟结果表明,薄膜热导率显著低于对应温度下的体硅单晶的实验值,并随膜厚度减小以接近线性的规律减小。用声子气动力论模型的分析结果与NEMD模拟相一致,表明纳米单晶硅薄膜中声子平均自由程显著减小。     

Pore-size dependence of the heat conduction in porous silicon and phonon spectral energy density analysis

Semiconductor devices made of silicon material have been widely used due to its excellent thermoelectrical properties. Here, the silicon material with aligned distributed rectangular-shaped holes is proposed for the manufacture of semiconductor device. Comprehensive understanding the heat conduction is of great significance to improve the efficiency of the thermoelectrical materials. This letter investigates the thermal conductivity of nanoscale porous silicon structures by adopting the nonequilibrium molecular dynamics method. The results demonstrate that the temperature is sensitive to the sizes of the rectangular-shaped holes. Additionally, it is found that the effective thermal conductivity significantly decreases with the increase of the dimensions of the holes. Our work reveals that the key to reduce the effective thermal conductivity is to disturb the distribution of heat flux. Furthermore, the phonon spectral energy density method is used to obtain the phonon dispersion and phonon energy in the frequency domain.     

一种适用于对称截面的主动式热斗篷的研究

直接求解导热方程对具有自适应热源的可控式热隐身技术进行数值研究，探索热流控制方法及隐身效果，推导出均匀背景下二维对称截面热斗篷热隐身区域自适应热源分布的通解.仿真结果表明：对于任意对称截面斗篷，自适应热源都能使得扰动后的温度场很好地恢复到背景温度场，达到热隐身的目的.     

硅纳米薄膜法向热导率的进一步分析

应用非平衡分子动力学方法进一步研究了平均温度为300K、厚度为2.715nm-43.44nm的单晶硅薄膜的法向热导率,模拟结果表明,薄膜热导率低于同温度下单晶硅的实验值,存在显著的尺寸效应,当膜厚度在20nm以下时,法向热导率随尺度减小而线性减小,当膜厚度大于20nm时法向热导率随尺度呈现二阶多项式变化。法向热导率的变化规律与面向热导率的变化规律类似,表明薄膜厚度和表面晶格结构对声子传热影响的复杂性。     

A revisit to imperfect acoustic cloak of multi-layered shell structures considering sound speed and impedance matching

An imperfect multi-layered acoustic cloak is proposed for a two-dimensional cloaking zone based on feasible material properties. In this model, the matching of sound speed and acoustic impedance has been investigated, and the effects of material and geometric properties on the imperfect cloak have been studied for better design of the imperfect cloak. The imperfect cloak could be improved using appropriate changes in the design parameters. By increasing the thickness of the high density layer and with some changes in the sound speeds between the high density and the low density layers, the imperfect cloaking model showed better cloaking performance than Cummer–Schurig cloak. Also, present results show that the sound speed matching is more important for acoustic cloaking than the impedance matching. These results can be applied as a practical design guide for two-dimensional cloaks using multilayered structures composed of naturally existing materials.     

多约束纳米结构的声子热导率模型研究

纳米技术的快速发展使得对微纳尺度导热机理的深入研究变得至关重要. 理论和实验都表明, 在纳米尺度下声子热导率将表现出尺寸效应. 基于声子玻尔兹曼方程和修正声子平均自由程的方法得到了多约束纳米结构的声子热导率模型, 可以描述多个几何约束共同作用下热导率的尺寸效应. 不同几何约束对声子输运的限制作用可以分开计算, 总体影响则通过马西森定则进行耦合. 对于热流方向的约束, 采用扩散近似的方法求解声子玻尔兹曼方程; 对于侧面边界约束, 采用修正平均自由程的方法计算边界散射对热导率的影响. 得到的模型能够预测纳米薄膜(法向和面向)及有限长度方形纳米线的热导率随相应特征尺寸的变化. 与蒙特卡罗模拟及硅纳米结构热导率实验值的对比验证了模型的正确性.     

Phonon considerations in the reduction of thermal conductivity in phononic crystals

Periodic porous structures offer unique material solutions to thermoelectric applications. With recent interest in phonon band gap engineering, these periodic structures can result in reduction of the phonon thermal conductivity due to coherent destruction of phonon modes characteristic in phononic crystals. In this paper, we numerically study phonon transport in periodic porous silicon phononic crystal structures. We develop a model for the thermal conductivity of phononic crystal that accounts for both coherent and incoherent phonon effects, and show that the phonon thermal conductivity is reduced to less than 4% of the bulk value for Si at room temperature. This has substantial impact on thermoelectric applications, where the efficiency of thermoelectric materials is inversely proportional to the thermal conductivity.     

Effect of normal processes on thermal conductivity of germanium,silicon and diamond

The effect of normal scattering processes is considered to redistribute the phonon momentum in (a) the same phonon branch — KK-S model and (b) between different phonon branches — KK-H model. Simplified thermal conductivity relations are used to estimate the thermal conductivity of germanium, silicon and diamond with natural isotopes and highly enriched isotopes. It is observed that the consideration of the normal scattering processes involving different phonon branches gives better results for the temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity of germanium, silicon and diamond with natural and highly enriched isotopes. Also, the estimation of the lattice thermal conductivity of germanium and silicon for these models with the consideration of quadratic form of frequency dependences of phonon wave vector leads to the conclusion that the splitting of longitudinal and transverse phonon modes, as suggested by Holland, is not an essential requirement to explain the entire temperature dependence of lattice thermal conductivity whereas KK-H model gives a better estimation of the thermal conductivity without the splitting of the acoustic phonon modes due to the dispersive nature of the phonon dispersion curves.      

Acoustic cloak with duplex communication ability constructed by multilayered homogeneous isotropic materials

Based on the effective medium theory, we propose a practical implementation of a cylindrical acoustic cloak with a concentric alternating multilayered structure of homogeneous isotropic materials, which can perfectly mimic the ideal radius-dependent and anisotropic ordinary lens cloak. The proposal exhibits near-ideal cloaking performance such as low-scattering and shadow-reducing in a wide frequency range, thus it can hide an object from the detection of acoustic waves. The acoustic wave can pass through the cloaking shell with an unchanged wavefront shape, which endues the cloaked object with duplex communication ability. More simulations on the acoustic far-field scattering patterns and the total scattering cross-section are performed to investigate the layer number and the frequency dependence of the cloaking effect, and the results show that the thinner layers exhibit a better cloaking effect. The proposal may significantly facilitate the experimental demonstration of the acoustic cloak.     

隐声衣结构设计和实验研究新进展

隐声衣是一项使物体隐藏于声场的新技术,与传统吸声方式相比,隐声衣消除回波时不会在目标背后留下声影区。隐声衣的物理实现是重点研究方向之一,利用具有特殊性质的材料或结构消除散射是获得隐声效果的主要途径。文章综述了隐声衣研究在结构设计和实验方面的几项新发展。包括基于超常材料的隐声衣、基于温度递度的隐声衣、应用反演设计方法的隐声衣、有源隐声衣等,主要介绍隐声衣机理和结构设计方面的新思想,以及新型人工材料和人工结构在隐声衣研究中的应用。     

基于拉普拉斯方程的任意形状热斗篷研究与设计

如何灵活地控制和操纵热流是目前研究的热点.本文基于拉普拉斯方程提出了一种设计任意形状热斗篷的方法.对于形状规则的热斗篷,在特定边界条件下求解拉普拉斯方程得到了斗篷区域材料的热导率分布解析表达式;对于不规则形状的热斗篷,通过数值求解拉普拉斯方程得到了斗篷区域材料的热导率参数分布.全波仿真结果表明,所设计的二维和三维任意形状热斗篷内部隐身区域的热通量为零,从而具有热保护功能;同时,热流绕过斗篷后温度场恢复原来的分布,实现了完美隐身功能.这项研究为解决热斗篷内外边界非共形问题提供了一种可行的方法,对热保护器件的设计和制备有指导意义.     

Phonon focusing and temperature dependences of the thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires

The influence of phonon focusing on the anisotropy and temperature dependences of the thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires (NWs) has been studied using the three-mode Callaway theory. The calculated temperature dependences of the thermal conductivity of silicon NWs with diameters above 50 nm agree well with experimental data in the 20–300 K range. The temperatures of transitions from the boundary-scattering to volume-relaxation mechanisms are determined. Variation of the thermal conductivity anisotropy depending on temperature is analyzed. The free paths of phonons with various polarizations in the boundary scattering regime in silicon NWs significantly differ and depend to a considerable degree on the phonon focusing. The free paths reach maxima in the directions of phonon focusing and exceed values for other oscillatory modes. However, in the isotropic medium model, the phonon free paths for various polarizations coincide and are fully determined by the geometric parameters of NWs.     

Comparative study on transport properties and scattering mechanism of group III doped SiC nanotube

The third group of elements is the acceptor of P-type silicon carbide (SiC). Therefore, studying the transport properties of group III doped SiC nanotube (SiCNTs) and revealing the carrier scattering mechanism have important scientific significance for improving the photoelectric properties and promoting the development of SiC nano-devices. In this article, the lattice structure and transport properties of IIIA-doped SiCNTs are investigated systematically using density functional theory. According to the first principle data, we calculate the temperature characteristics of the conductivity, carrier concentration, and mobility, then, analyze the contributions of optical phonon, ionized impurity, neutral impurity and inter-carrier scattering to the mobility. The calculation results show that the conductivity of IIIA-doped SiCNTs decreased with increasing temperature in the temperature range below 200 K, above 200 K, the conductivity increases with increasing temperature. The main scattering mechanisms are optical phonon scattering and neutral impurity scattering. In application, this results will help the selection of SiCNTs acceptor.