Simultaneously realizing thermal and electromagnetic cloaking by multi-physical null medium

Abstract

Simultaneously manipulating multiple physical fields plays an important role in the increasingly complex integrated systems, aerospace equipment, biochemical productions, etc. For on-chip systems with high integration level (e.g., electronic/photonic chips and radio-frequency/microwave circuits), where both electromagnetic information/energy transporting and heat dissipation/recovery need to be considered, the precise and efficient control of the propagation of electromagnetic waves and heat fluxes simultaneously is particularly important. In this study, we propose a graphical designing method based on thermal-electromagnetic null medium to simultaneously control the propagation of electromagnetic waves and thermal fields according to the pre-designed paths. A thermal-electromagnetic cloak, which can create a cloaking effect on both electromagnetic waves and thermal fields simultaneously, is designed by thermal-electromagnetic surface transformation and verified by both numerical simulations and experimental measurements. The thermal-electromagnetic surface transformation proposed in this study provides a new methodology for simultaneous controlling on electromagnetic and temperature fields, which can be used to realize a series of novel thermal-electromagnetic devices such as thermal-electromagnetic shifter, splitter, bender, multiplexer and mode converter. The designed thermal-electromagnetic cloak opens up new ways to create a concealed region where any object within it does not create any disturbance to the external electromagnetic waves and temperature fields simultaneously, which may have significant applications in improving thermal-electromagnetic compatibility problem, protecting of thermal-electromagnetic sensitive components, and improving efficiency of energy usage for complex on-chip systems.