Graphene demon wave transistor

Controlling heat flow at the microscale with transistor-like precision has long been a challenge, as thermal energy in solids typically diffuses without an efficient gating mechanism. Hydrodynamic electron fluids, such as the Dirac fluid in charge neutral graphene, offer a distinct approach by supporting non-diffusive, wave-like heat transport that could overcome this limitation. Here we demonstrate a graphene based thermal transistor that uses electrostatic gating to actively modulate these entropy-carrying heat waves-so called demon modes-in an ultraclean graphene channel. A local gate creates a narrow carrier density barrier that can either transmit or reflect the propagating entropy wave, yielding on/ off heat flow modulation exceeding 80%. On-chip time-resolved terahertz microscopy is used to directly visualize the wave propagation and its gate-controlled switching behavior. Furthermore, two-fluid hydrodynamic simulations quantitatively reproduce the observed transmission characteristics and reveal that the switching is governed by impedance matching between the gated and ungated regions of the electron fluid. Our results establish a foundation for active thermal circuitry and on-chip heat logic based on hydrodynamic electron transport.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2026-02-24
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69839-6
Primary Topic
Thermal properties of materials
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Graphene demon wave transistor

Wenyu Zhao, Liang Zhang, Yibo Feng, Z. L. Jin et al.
Nature Communications
Thermal properties of materials
article

Graphene demon wave transistor

Wenyu Zhao, Liang Zhang, Yibo Feng, Z. L. Jin, Yuwei Zhuang, Kenji Watanabe, Ju Shang, Guangliang Niu, Takashi Taniguchi, Zhengjie Duan, Jian Wang
article en

Abstract

Controlling heat flow at the microscale with transistor-like precision has long been a challenge, as thermal energy in solids typically diffuses without an efficient gating mechanism. Hydrodynamic electron fluids, such as the Dirac fluid in charge neutral graphene, offer a distinct approach by supporting non-diffusive, wave-like heat transport that could overcome this limitation. Here we demonstrate a graphene based thermal transistor that uses electrostatic gating to actively modulate these entropy-carrying heat waves-so called demon modes-in an ultraclean graphene channel. A local gate creates a narrow carrier density barrier that can either transmit or reflect the propagating entropy wave, yielding on/ off heat flow modulation exceeding 80%. On-chip time-resolved terahertz microscopy is used to directly visualize the wave propagation and its gate-controlled switching behavior. Furthermore, two-fluid hydrodynamic simulations quantitatively reproduce the observed transmission characteristics and reveal that the switching is governed by impedance matching between the gated and ungated regions of the electron fluid. Our results establish a foundation for active thermal circuitry and on-chip heat logic based on hydrodynamic electron transport.

Nature Communications
National Institute for Materials Science (JP), Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (CN), Hubei University of Education (CN), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 46%
Thermal properties of materials
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