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Out-of-plane heat transfer in van der Waals stacks through electron–hyperbolic phonon coupling

Nature Nanotechnology volume 13, pages 41–46 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Van der Waals heterostructures have emerged as promising building blocks that offer access to new physics, novel device functionalities and superior electrical and optoelectronic properties1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Applications such as thermal management, photodetection, light emission, data communication, high-speed electronics and light harvesting8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 require a thorough understanding of (nanoscale) heat flow. Here, using time-resolved photocurrent measurements, we identify an efficient out-of-plane energy transfer channel, where charge carriers in graphene couple to hyperbolic phonon polaritons17,18,19 in the encapsulating layered material. This hyperbolic cooling is particularly efficient, giving picosecond cooling times for hexagonal BN, where the high-momentum hyperbolic phonon polaritons enable efficient near-field energy transfer. We study this heat transfer mechanism using distinct control knobs to vary carrier density and lattice temperature, and find excellent agreement with theory without any adjustable parameters. These insights may lead to the ability to control heat flow in van der Waals heterostructures.

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Fig. 1: Hot carrier cooling in hBN-encapsulated graphene.
Fig. 2: Effect of doping and lattice temperature.
Fig. 3: Qualitative comparison with hyperbolic hBN cooling.
Fig. 4: Quantitative comparison with hyperbolic hBN cooling.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Tomadin and F. Vialla for discussions. This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 696656, Graphene Flagship, Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0522), Fundacio Cellex Barcelona, Mineco grants Ramon y Cajal (RYC-2012-12281), Plan Nacional (FIS2013-47161-P) and the Government of Catalonia through an SGR grant (2014-SGR-1535), ERC StG CarbonLight (307806), ERC grant Hetero2D, and EPSRC grants EP/K01711X/1, EP/K017144/1, EP/N010345/1 and EP/L016087/1. K.-J.T. acknowledges support from a Mineco Young Investigator Grant (FIS2014-59639-JIN). A.P. acknowledges support from ERC Advanced Grant 338957 FEMTO/NANO and from the NWO via the Spinoza Prize. M.M. acknowledges support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (PGSD3-426325-2012). D.T. acknowledges financial support from the European Union Marie Curie Program (Career Integration grant no. 334324 LIGHTER) and the Max Planck Society. K.W. and T.T. acknowledge support from the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by the MEXT, Japan and JSPS KAKENHI (grant nos. JP26248061, JP15K21722 and JP25106006).

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Author notes

  1. Klaas-Jan Tielrooij and Niels Hesp are equally contributing authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICFO – Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain

    Klaas-Jan Tielrooij, Niels C. H. Hesp, Mark B. Lundeberg, Mathieu Massicotte, Peter Schmidt, Diana Davydovskaya & Frank H. L. Koppens

  2. Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Alessandro Principi

  3. School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Alessandro Principi

  4. IFN-CNR, Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy

    Eva A. A. Pogna & Giulio Cerullo

  5. JARA-FIT and 2nd Institute of Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Luca Banszerus & Christoph Stampfer

  6. Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany

    Zoltán Mics, Mischa Bonn & Dmitry Turchinovich

  7. Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    David G. Purdie, Ilya Goykhman, Giancarlo Soavi & Andrea C. Ferrari

  8. National Institute for Material Science, Tsukuba, Japan

    Antonio Lombardo, Kenji Watanabe & Takashi Taniguchi

  9. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Graphene Labs, Genova, Italy

    Marco Polini

  10. ICREA – Institució Catalana de Reçerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona, Spain

    Frank H. L. Koppens

  11. Fakultät für Physik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany

    Dmitry Turchinovich

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  1. Klaas-Jan Tielrooij
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Contributions

K.-J.T. and F.H.L.K. conceived the experiment. K.-J.T. and N.C.H.H. performed the time-resolved photocurrent experiments and performed data analysis. A.P., M.P. and M.B.L. developed the theory and performed calculations on hyperbolic cooling. E.A.A.P. performed the optical pump–probe spectroscopy measurements. Z.M. and K.-J.T. performed the optical pump–THz probe spectroscopy measurements. N.C.H.H., M.B.L., L.B., M.M., P.S., D.D., D.G.P., I.G., G.S. and A.L. fabricated devices. K.W. and T.T. contributed hBN material. M.B., D.T., C.S., A.C.F., G.C., M.P. and F.H.L.K. supervised the work and discussed the results. K.-J.T., F.H.L.K. and M.P. wrote the paper, with input from all authors.

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Correspondence to Klaas-Jan Tielrooij or Frank H. L. Koppens.

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Tielrooij, KJ., Hesp, N.C.H., Principi, A. et al. Out-of-plane heat transfer in van der Waals stacks through electron–hyperbolic phonon coupling. Nature Nanotech 13, 41–46 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-017-0008-8

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