  The ability to control electric currents in solids using diodes and
transistors is undoubtedly at the origin of the main developments in modern
electronics which have revolutionized the daily life in the second half of 20th
century. Surprisingly, until the year 2000 no thermal counterpart for such a
control had been proposed. Since then, based on pioneering works on the control
of phononic heat currents new devices were proposed which allow for the control
of heat fluxes carried by photons rather than phonons or electrons. The goal of
the present paper is to summarize the main advances achieved recently in the
field of thermal energy control with photons.
