Thermal circuits

工业中使用的能源有60%以上是作为低品位废热(温度低于200℃)损失的。因此，由于有限的能源资源和全球变暖问题，热流管理已成为一个非常重要的挑战。不幸的是，很少有热力学循环能有效地利用这些低温气流。在过去的几十年里，人们发现热体的表面存在着很强的能量密度。这种能量来自于热体表面周围原子的热搅动所产生的瞬变电磁场的存在。今天，收集、储存、运输和转化这种能源是一个具有挑战性的问题。这些不同的步骤需要开发一种技术来操纵非辐射热光子。如果通过二极管、晶体管和其他基本的电子构建块实现电子化，通过允许控制固体中的电子流动，使我们当前的生活发生了一场革命，那么任何电路的热对应物都无法操纵热体之间通过热光子交换的热通量。我们建议设想和开发电子元器件的热等效物，这些元器件在过去的一个世纪里彻底改变了电子传输。我的研究计划的长期目标是对热量进行同样的控制，就像已经证明的对电流的控制一样--能够打开和关闭它，调节它，甚至放大它。为了实现这一长期目标，这项为期五年的计划的范围包括两个研究课题：1)许多物体系统中近场热交换的基本物理；2)在纳米尺度上管理热光子的基本构件。

Over 60% of energy used in industry is lost as low grade waste heat (temperatures less than 200ºC). Thermal flow management has therefore become a very important challenge due to the limited energy resources and global warming issues. Unfortunately, few thermodynamic cycles can use these low temperature streams effectively. In the very last decades, it has been discovered that a strong density of energy exists at the surface of hot bodies. This energy results from the presence of evanescent electromagnetic field generated by the thermal agitation of atoms around the surface of hot bodies. Harvesting, storing, transporting and converting this energy is today a challenging problem. Those different steps require developing a technology to manipulate the non-radiative thermal photons. If electronic via the diode, the transistor and other basic electronic building blocks have enabled a revolution in our current lives by allowing the control of electronic flow in solids, no thermal counterpart of electric circuits is able to manipulate the heat flux exchanged throughout thermal photons between hot bodies. We propose to conceive and develop thermal equivalent of electronic components that have revolutionized electron transport the past century. The long-term objective of my research program is to exercise the same control over heat that has been already demonstrated over electric current–the ability to switch it on and off, to modulate it and even to amplify it. To achieve this long-term goal the scope of this five years project is composed of two research topics: 1) Fundamental physics of near-field heat exchanges in many body systems; 2) Basic building blocks to manage thermal photons at nanoscale.