Descrizione del progetto
Gestione intelligente del calore radiativo con componenti termotronici
La termotronica offre soluzioni promettenti per la gestione delle fonti di calore. Nei componenti termotronici, le correnti di calore scorrono a causa delle differenze di temperatura applicate. Nei componenti radiativi, i fotoni termici scorrono come gli elettroni nei dispositivi elettronici. Lo scambio termico tra una sorgente e un ricevitore senza contatto è controllato da un transistor termico radiativo. Quando i componenti sono nanodimensionati, il rumore ambientale diventa problematico. Il progetto RTTT, finanziato dall’UE, aspira ad affrontare le fluttuazioni, la dinamica e la dissipazione dei componenti termotronici basati sul trasporto di fotoni su scala nanometrica e che operano in condizioni di perturbazione del rumore ambientale. I parametri che definiscono gli stati dei componenti saranno trattati come variabili stocastiche da cui si possono ricavare le condizioni di stabilità per gli stati di equilibrio. Questo lavoro getterà le basi di strategie innovative per controllare attivamente i flussi di calore radiativo.
Obiettivo
Thermotronics is a developing discipline that offers promising options to manage heat sources and proposes new ways of exploiting signals encoded by heat. Analogously to what happens in electronic components in which electric currents flow as a consequence of potential differences, thermotronic components are devices in which heat currents flow due to applied temperature differences. In radiative components, thermal photons flow as electrons flow in their electronic counterparts. Among these devices, a radiative thermal transistor controls the heat exchange without contact between a source and a receiver. When these components are reduced to the nanoscale, the environmental noise becomes important and is a major cause for concern. The objective of the proposal is to address fluctuations, dynamics and dissipation in thermotronic components, based on nanoscale photon transport and working under environmental noise perturbations. This is achieved by considering the parameters that define the states of these components as stochastic variables, from which stability conditions for equilibrium states can be derived and the dynamics under general nonequilibrium scenarios can be characterized. The proposed scheme provides novel methods to estimate the mean life of the states of a thermal memory and to quantify the time response of thermotronic components, including the impact of environmental conditions which are of prime importance for applications. A nonequilibrium thermodynamics framework dealing with the associated stochastic dynamics is also proposed to account for dissipation as a key element to optimize the performance of these devices. The proposal paves the way for innovative strategies for an active control of radiative heat fluxes, strengthening tools and concepts for smart radiative thermal management. The proposed methods for the description of fluctuations, dynamics and dissipation can be applied to any other many-body system with radiative interactions.
Campo scientifico
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Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF-EF-RI - RI – Reintegration panelCoordinatore
08007 Barcelona
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