Near-field radiative heat transfer between chiral metamaterials

We investigate the near-field radiative heat transfer between two dispersive and lossy chiral metamaterials. Our theory takes into account the magnetoelectric coupling effect compared with the existing theories. It is shown that the contribution of surface modes to heat transfer is strongly modulated by the magnetoelectric coupling effect. We predict that in the presence of strong coupling effect, the resonant tunneling modes with small parallel wavenumbers activate a novel energy transfer channel. We also find that the dissipation effect in material, which is characterized by the scattering rate, significantly influences the effect of magnetoelectric coupling on near-field heat transfer. We finally discuss the applications of these results in thermophotovoltaic energy conversion and the experimental realization of near-field heat transfer. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4759055]