Thermal characteristics of a microscopic model of thermal transistor

•Output and transfer characteristics of 1D model of thermal transistor is presented.•Fourier region, keen point, pinch-off point and saturation region are coined.•First ever equation for thermal current JS=JSS[1−TGSTP]2 is numerically established.•We get thermal amplification of output heat current ≈ 218.•Obtained value of thermal transconductance is 0.0164 ± 0.0007.

We study an in-depth operation of a microscopic model of thermal transistor consisting of Fermi – Pasta – Ulam – β like lattices. The output and the transfer characteristics of thermal transistor have been reported, which are very analogous to its counterpart characteristics of an n-channel FET. Here, we coined and identified terminology like thermal Fourier region, thermal knee point, thermal pinch-off point and thermal saturation region from output characteristics of thermal transistor. Thermal source resistance, thermal transconductance and thermal amplification factor have been defined and computed for different gate temperatures. Our non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation study shows an amplification of output thermal current ≈ 218 times with thermal transconductance 0.0164 ± 0.0007. First ever equation for output thermal current JS=JSS[1−TGSTP]2 is numerically established which is very analogous to that of Shockley’s equation for FET.

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