Heat, one of the most stubborn forms of energy to control, may soon be steered with a precision once reserved for electrons and photons. In a study published in Results in Physics, researcher Diaa Alkhateeb presents a theoretical design for a quantum-enhanced thermal metamaterial — a one-dimensional chain of engineered unit cells whose heat-carrying vibrations are coupled coherently to an array of artificial two-level quantum systems. The proposal predicts that quantum effects can boost heat flow through topologically protected channels by nearly an order of magnitude, and can even make heat flow preferentially in one direction, a property known as thermal rectification that conventional materials cannot easily achieve.
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