Scientists figured out how to make heat move faster than the theoretical "speed limit" it's supposed to have.
arXiv · March 18, 2026 · 2603.16296
The Takeaway
There is a theoretical 'speed limit' for how fast heat can move through a solid, known as ballistic transport. By trapping tiny particles inside a special cavity, researchers forced heat to move 'superballistically,' breaking that limit and opening the door for ultra-fast cooling in future electronics.
From the abstract
Ballistic transport, realized when the system size is smaller than the mean free path of energy carriers, is traditionally regarded as the ultimate limit for energy transfer. Here, we predict a superballistic radiative heat transport regime that surpasses this limit in dilute chains of plasmonic nanoparticles confined within cavities. This anomalous regime exhibits superlinear scaling of the effective thermal conductivity (k ~L^1.5) and originates from the amplification of long-range interaction