Radiative thermal diode driven by nonreciprocal surface waves

Abstract

We demonstrate the possibility to rectify the nanoscale radiative heat flux between two nanoparticles by coupling them with the nonreciprocal surface modes of a magneto-optical substrate in a Voigt configuration. When the nonreciprocal medium supports a surface wave in the spectral window where heat exchanges take place, the rectification coefficient can reach large values opening so the way to the design of true thermal diodes.