Radiative heat transfer between two carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Abstract We analyze the radiative heat transfer between two parallel and infinitely long carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The radiative heat exchange is due to the difference between the Poynting vectors generated by the fluctuating currents when the CNTs are at different temperatures. The radiated and absorbed Poynting vectors are expressed in terms of the correlations of the electromagnetic fields obtained from the Green’s function and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem for the current density. The analysis takes into account the scattering of the fields by the nanotubes. We show that the radiative heat transfer depends not only on the distance between nanotubes, but also on their chiralities and thus on their semiconducting or metallic nature, which would allow the design of nanostructures for optimal radiative heat exchange.