Regular Article

Geometric effect on near-field heat transfer analysis using efficient graphene and nanotube models

¹ Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Republic of Singapore
² Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117551, Republic of Singapore

^a e-mail: kristolian@yahoo.com

Received: 30 March 2020
Received in final form: 4 June 2020
Published online: 15 July 2020

Abstract

Following the recent research enthusiasm on the effect of geometry on near-field heat transfer (NFHT) enhancement, we present an analysis based on simplified yet highly efficient graphene and nanotube models. Two geometries are considered: that of two parallel infinite “graphene” surfaces and that of a one-dimensional infinite “nanotube” line in parallel with an infinite surface. Due to its symmetry, the former is in principal simpler to analyze and even so, earlier works suggested that the application of a full model in this problem still demands heavy computations. Among other findings, our simplified computation – having successfully replicated the results of relevant earlier works – suggests a sharper NFHT enhancement dependence on distance for the line-surface system, namely J ~ d^−5.1 as compared to J ~ d^−2.2 for the parallel surface. Such comparisons together with applications of our efficient approach would be the important first steps in the attempt to find a general rule describing geometric dependence of NFHT.