No abstract

We discuss the design of the thermal analog of logic gates in systems made of a collection of nanoparticles. We demonstrate the possibility to perform NOT, OR, NOR, AND and NAND logical operations at submicrometric scale by controlling the near-field radiative heat exchanges between their components. We also address the important point of the role played by the inherent nonadditivity of radiative heat transfer in the combination of logic gates. These results pave the way to the development of compact thermal circuits for information processing and thermal management.