Full Control Of Heat Transfer In Single-Particle Structural Materials

Thermal metamaterials have been applied to implement thermal phenomena, such as invisibility, illusion, and refraction. However, during the fabrication, they probably have complicated issues which are on account of the complicated structures. To get around this, here we put forward a single-particle structure. The theory helps to simplify the existing methods, which will undoubtedly contribute to the efficiency of fabrication. For clarity, we show the simulation and experimental results of thermal invisibility and illusion based on our proposed single-particle structural materials. Moreover, by tailoring the shape factor of the single particle appropriately, we can simultaneously realize thermal invisibility and illusion with only one device. The adjustable area fraction also indicates that these types of structural materials are highly adaptable. Such a single-particle device may have broad applications in misleading infrared detection. This work not only opens an avenue to design thermal materials based on single-particle structures but also holds for other physical fields like electrostatics, magnetostatics, and particle dynamics.