Thermal rectification with topological edge states

Abstract

Thermal rectification devices can be important for various thermal management applications. For oscillator chains, thermal rectification was observed when masses are distributed non-uniformly. Leaning on the importance of topological materials, we consider here a simple vibrational topological system, the binary isotope superlattice (BISL). We show that the BISL can be mapped exactly onto the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model, which has different topological phases, including topological edge sates. For the case, where there is a single topological edge state, we show that the BISL exhibits thermal rectification in the presence of a small nonlinear term. Thermal transport is computed using temperature reservoirs connected to both extremities. These results have implications for other classes of topological phonon systems.