FURI | Spring 2020

Steady-State Measurements of Near-Field Radiative Heat Transfer between Ultra-Flat Thin-Film Materials

The radiative heat transfer between two objects is conventionally limited by Planck’s radiation law. When the gap spacing becomes smaller than the characteristic thermal wavelength, it is possible to greatly surpass this limit with so-called near-field effect. The research objective is to experimentally prove this enhancement by using a steady-state apparatus to measure the radiative heat flux between two plates coated with different thin-film oxides across a nanosized gap. Harnessing this energy increase allows for applications directly related to thermal energy conversion, and radiative thermal management.