Temperature Gated Thermal Rectifier

Heat flow control is essential for widespread applications of heating, cooling, energy conversion and utilization. Here we demonstrate the first observation of temperature-gated thermal rectification in vanadium dioxide beams, in which an environment temperature actively modulates asymmetric heat flow. In this three terminal device, there are two switchable states, which can be accessed by global heating: Rectifier state and Resistor state. In the Rectifier state, up to 28% thermal rectification is observed. In the Resistor state, the thermal rectification is significantly suppressed (below 4%). This temperature-gated rectifier can have substantial implications ranging from autonomous thermal management of micro/nanoscale devices to thermal energy conversion and storage.