Electromagnetically controlled multiferroic thermal diode

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. We propose an electromagnetically tunable thermal diode based on a two-phase multiferroic composite. Analytical and full numerical calculations for a prototypical heterojunction composed of iron on barium titanate in the tetragonal phase demonstrate a strong heat rectification effect that can be controlled externally by a moderate electric field. This finding is important for thermally based information processing and sensing and can also be integrated in (spin) electronic circuits for heat management and recycling.