Metamaterials boost heat transfer across nanoscale gaps fourfold

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and Purdue experimentally showed that patterned gold metamaterials can amplify near-field radiative heat transfer across a nanoscale gap by up to four times. The study, published in Nature, relies on resonance with surface phonon polaritons.

• Heat transfer across the nanoscale gap rose up to 4x versus setups without metamaterials
• The effect comes from resonance between gold structures and surface phonon polaritons
• Results were published in Nature on May 27, 2026
• Work supported by DTRA, NSF and AFOSR