Deep subwavelength thermal switch via resonant coupling in monolayer hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract

Unlike the electrical conductance that can be widely modulated within the same material even in deep nanoscale devices, tuning the thermal conductance within a single material system or nanostructure is extremely challenging and requires a large-scale device. This prohibits the realization of robust ON/OFF states in switching the flow of thermal currents. Here, we present the theory of a thermal switch based on resonant coupling of three photonic resonators, in analogy to the field-effect electronic transistor composed of a source, gate, and drain. As a material platform, we capitalize on the extreme tunability and low-loss resonances observed in the dielectric function of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) under controlled strain. We derive the dielectric function of hBN from first principles, including the phonon-polariton linewidths computed by considering phonon isotope and anharmonic phonon-phonon scattering. Subsequently, we propose a strain-controlled hBN-based thermal switch that modulates thermal conductance by more than an order of magnitude, corresponding to an ON/OFF contrast ratio of 98%, in a deep subwavelength nanostructure.

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