Graphene-based thermal repeater

In this Letter, we have demonstrated the possibility to efficiently relay the radiative heat flux between two nanoparticles by opening a smooth channel for heat transfer. By coating the nanoparticles with a silica shell and modifying the substrate with multilayered graphene sheets, respectively, the localized phonon polaritons excited near the nanoparticles can couple with the multiple surface plasmon polaritons near the substrate to realize the heat relay at a long distance. The heat transfer can be enhanced by more than six orders of magnitude, and the relay distance can be as high as 35 times in the far-field regime. This work may provide a way to realize the energy modulation or thermal communications especially at long distances.