  A thermal diode based on the asymmetric radiative heat transfer between
nanoparticles assisted by the nonreciprocal graphene plasmons waveguides is
proposed in this work. The thermal diode system consists of two particles and a
drift-biased suspended graphene sheet in close proximity of them. Nonreciprocal
graphene plasmons are induced by the drift currents in the graphene sheet, and
then couple to the waves emitted by the particles in near-field regime. Based
on the asymmetry with respect to their propagation direction of graphene
plasmons, the thermal rectification between the two particles is observed. The
performance of the radiative thermal diode can be actively adjusted through
tuning the chemical potential or changing the drift currents in the graphene
sheet. With a large drift velocity and a small chemical potential, a perfect
radiative thermal diode with a rectification coefficient extremely approaching
to 1 can be achieved within a wide range of the interparticle distance from
near to far-field. The dispersion relations of the graphene plasmons are
adopted to analyze the underlying physics of the rectification effect. In
addition, due to the wide band characteristic of the nonreciprocal graphene
plasmons, the driftbiased graphene can act as a universal platform for the
thermal rectification between particles. The particles with a larger particle
resonance frequency are much more preferred to produce a better thermal diode.
This technology could find broad applications in the field of thermal
management at nanoscale
