title: Thermal rectification and negative differential thermal conductance in harmonic chains with nonlinear system-bath coupling.
abstract: Thermal rectification and negative differential thermal conductance were realized in harmonic chains in this work. We used the generalized Caldeira-Leggett model to study the heat flow. In contrast to most previous studies considering only the linear system-bath coupling, we considered the nonlinear system-bath coupling based on recent experiment [Eichler et al., Nat. Nanotech. 6, 339 (2011)]. When the linear coupling constant is weak, the multiphonon processes induced by the nonlinear coupling allow more phonons transport across the system-bath interface and hence the heat current is enhanced. Consequently, thermal rectification and negative differential thermal conductance are achieved when the nonlinear couplings are asymmetric. However, when the linear coupling constant is strong, the umklapp processes dominate the multiphonon processes. Nonlinear coupling suppresses the heat current. Thermal rectification is also achieved. But the direction of rectification is reversed compared to the results of weak linear coupling constant.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics and Material Science, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui 230601, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ming
authors.affiliation: Supercomputing Center, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hui-Min
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ze-Jun
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Ding