  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 non-additivity
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, which might also be realized with quantum
dots.
