Talk-Polywell.org

Most conventional materials allow heat to travel in all directions, like ripples expanding outward from a pebble dropped in a pond; thermocrystals could instead produce the equivalent of those ripples only moving out in a single direction, Maldovan says. The crystals could also be used to create thermal diodes: materials in which heat can pass in one direction, but not in the reverse direction. Such a one-way heat flow could be useful in energy-efficient buildings in hot and cold climates.

Other variations of the material could be used to focus heat — much like focusing light with a lens — to concentrate it in a small area. Another intriguing possibility is thermal cloaking, Maldovan says: materials that prevent detection of heat, just as recently developed metamaterials can create “invisibility cloaks” to shield objects from detection by visible light or microwaves.