https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-025-01938-9
Regular Article
The effect of nonlinearity on the efficiency of a thermal rectifier in the form of a junction of two chains
1
National Research University Higher School of Economics, Kantemirovskaya St. 3k1lA, 194100, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
2
Ufa State Petroleum Technological University, 450062, Ufa, Russia
3
MinJiang Collaborative Center for Theoretical Physics, College of Physics and Electronic Information Engineering, Minjiang University, 350108, Fuzhou, China
4
Institute of Mathematics with Computing Centre, UFRC of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernyshevskogo St., 112, 450000, Ufa, Russia
5
Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), Miklukho-Maklaya St., 6, 117198, Moscow, Russia
6
Bashkir State Pedagogical University named after M. Akhmulla, 3-a Oktyabrskoj Revoljucii St., 450077, Ufa, Russia
7
Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Paseo Juan XXIII, 1, 28040, Madrid, Spain
8
Escuela de Arquitectura, Ingeniería, Ciencia y Computacion, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Villaviciosa de Odon, 28670, Madrid, Spain
a
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Received:
24
August
2025
Accepted:
4
September
2025
Published online:
12
September
2025
Abstract
A thermal diode or rectifier is a heat conductor whose thermal conductivity depends on the sign of the temperature gradient. The junction of two beta-Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (
-FPUT) chains with anharmonic on-site potentials is considered here as a thermal rectifier. First, the linear case is analyzed and it is shown that in thermal equilibrium, when the energy is uniformly distributed among all phonon modes, the energy flux through the junction does not depend on its direction, in other words, the junction of harmonic chains does not act as a thermal diode. The thermal diode effect is observed in the harmonic system when the energy is unevenly distributed among the phonons. It is also observed when anharmonicity is taken into account. The results of this work are useful in analyzing the thermal conductivity of nanomaterials.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
Sergey V. Dmitriev, Daxing Xiong, Denis I. Borisov and Manuel G. Velarde have contributed equally to this work.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2025
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
