Near-field radiative heat transfer between hybrid polaritonic structures

Near-field radiative heat transfer between close objects may exceed the far-field blackbody radiation in orders of magnitude when exploiting polaritonic materials. Great efforts have been made to experimentally measure this fundamental stochastic effect but mostly based on simple materials. In this work, we foster an all-optical method to characterize the heat transfer between less explored plasmon-phonon hybrid polaritonic systems made of graphene-SiC heterostructures. A large heat flux about 26 times of the blackbody radiation limit is obtained over a 150-nm vacuum gap, attributed to the couplings of three different surface modes (plasmon, phonon polaritons and frustrated mode). The interaction of polaritonic modes in the hybrid system is also explored to build a switchable thermophotonic device with nearly unity heat flux tunability. This work paves the way for understanding mode-mediated near-field heat transfer and provides a platform for building thermophotonic or thermo-optoelectronic blocks for various applications.