Twist engineering of nanoscale thermal transport

Thermal transport at the nanoscale is fundamentally important and crucially impacts a range of applications from electronic chip cooling to advanced energy technology. Inspired by the rise of twistronics, twist engineering has recently emerged as a powerful approach to control nanoscale heat flow, which leverages interlayer rotation in van der Waals materials as a new degree of freedom. Here, we first briefly introduce the basic principles of twist engineering. Subsequently, we discuss various experimental techniques and computational approaches for investigating phonon-mediated heat conduction, together with key results and physical mechanisms for the active manipulation of both out-of-plane and in-plane transport. Furthermore, we review advances in the twist-induced modulation of photon-mediated thermal radiation, distinguishing strategies that tune intrinsic optical responses from those utilizing extrinsic couplings. We conclude with remarks on the opportunities and challenges for future exploration of twist-engineered thermal management and energy conversion.