Surface plasmon-coupled radiative heat transfer between graphene-covered magnetic Weyl semimetals

Weyl semimetals (WSMs) have recently attracted considerable research attention because of their remarkable optical and electrical properties. In this study, we investigate the near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between graphene-covered Weyl slabs, particularly focusing on the supported coupled surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Unlike bare Weyl slabs where the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) effect contributes the most to the NFRHT, adding a monolayer graphene sheet yields coupled SPPs, i.e., the coupling of graphene SPPs (GSPPs) and Weyl SPPs (WSPPs), which dominates the NFRHT. The graphene sheet greatly suppresses the ENZ effect by compressing the parallel wavevector, thereby enabling the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) to be significantly changed. Further, for the graphene-covered magnetic Weyl slab configuration, an increase in the number of Weyl nodes suppresses the SPP coupling and ENZ effect, thereby weakening the NFRHT with a regulation ratio of 4.4 whereas an increase in the Fermi level slightly influences the NFRHT. Several typical heterostructures are also proposed for comparison, and results show that a mono-cell structure has the largest total HTC. Our findings will facilitate the understanding of surface plasmon-coupled radiative heat transfer and enable opportunities in energy harvesting and thermal management at the nanoscale based on WSM-based systems.