title: Radiative bistability and thermal memory.
abstract: We predict the existence of a thermal bistability in many-body systems out of thermal equilibrium which exchange heat by thermal radiation using insulator-metal transition materials. We propose a writing-reading procedure and demonstrate the possibility to exploit the thermal bistability to make a volatile thermal memory. We show that this thermal memory can be used to store heat and thermal information (via an encoding temperature) for arbitrary long times. The radiative thermal bistability could find broad applications in the domains of thermal management, information processing, and energy storage.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, UMR 8501, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud 11, 2, Avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Viacheslav
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kubytskyi
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Carl von Ossietzky Universität, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Svend-Age
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Biehs
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, UMR 8501, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Université Paris-Sud 11, 2, Avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ben-Abdallah