Kirigami-Inspired Thermal Regulator

One of the current challenges in nanoscience is tailoring phononic devices, such as thermal regulators and thermal computing. This has long been a rather elusive task because the thermal-switching ratio is not as high as electronic analogs. Mapping from a topological kirigami assembly, nitrogen-doped porous graphene metamaterials on the nanoscale are inversely designed with a thermal-switching ratio of 27.79, which is more than double the value of previous work. We trace this behavior to the chiral folding-unfolding deformation, resulting in a metal-insulator transition. This study provides a nanomaterial design paradigm to bridge the gap between kinematics and functional metamaterials that motivates the development of high-performance thermal regulators.