Thermal resonance in harmonically driven segmented Frenkel–Kontorova lattices with next-nearest-neighbor interactions

Problems of heat transport are ubiquitous to various technologies such as power generation, cooling, electronics, and thermoelectrics. Within this context it is natural that external heat flux control on nanoscale devices became an appealing strategy that has been explored in recent years. In this work we study the thermal resonance phenomenon, i.e. the maximum heat flux obtained by means of an external periodic driving, of a one-dimensional system composed of two dissimilar Frenkel–Kontorova lattices with both nearest-neighbor (NN) and next-NN (NNN) interactions connected by time-modulated NN and NNN couplings in contact with two heat reservoirs operating at different temperature. We study the effect of the NNN interactions on the various heat transport regimes afforded by the structural modifications that can be made on the model. The dependence of the thermal resonance on the system size is studied as well. Our results show that, despite the increased connectivity of both sides afforded by the NNN interactions, the overlap of the phonon bands of both parts of the system still determines the frequency range wherewith thermal resonance emerges.