Intelligent thermal cloak-concentrators

Abstract

How to macroscopically control the flow of heat at will is up to now a challenge, which, however, is very important for human life since heat flow is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature. Inspired by intelligent electronic components or intelligent materials, here we demonstrate, analytically and numerically, a unique class of intelligent bifunctional thermal metamaterials called thermal cloak-concentrators, which can automatically change from a cloak (concentrator) to a concentrator (cloak) when the applied temperature field decreases (increases). For future experimental realization, the behavior is also confirmed by assembling homogeneous isotropic materials according to the effective medium theory. The underlying mechanism originates from the effect of nonlinearity in thermal conduction. This work not only makes it possible to achieve a switchable Seebeck effect, but also offers guidance both for macroscopic manipulation of heat flow at will and for the design of similar intelligent multifunctional metamaterials in optics, electromagnetics, acoustics, or elastodynamics.

14 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Experimental demonstration of a multiphysics cloak: manipulating heat flux and electric current simultaneously
• Invisible sensor: Simultaneous sensing and camouflaging in multiphysical fields
• Intelligent thermal cloak-concentrators
• Reconfigurable anisotropy and functional transformations with VO${}_2$-based metamaterial electric circuits
• Temperature-dependent transformation thermotics: From switchable thermal cloaks to macroscopic thermal diodes

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Transforming heat transfer with thermal metamaterials and devices
• Intelligent thermal cloak-concentrators
• Controlling mass and energy diffusion with metamaterials
• Tunable liquid-solid hybrid thermal metamaterials with a topology transition
• Designing nonlinear thermal devices and metamaterials under the Fourier's law: A route to nonlinear thermotics
• Bifunctional Metamaterials with Simultaneous and Independent Manipulation of Thermal and Electric Fields
• Deep Learning for Robotic Mass Transport Cloaking