Near-field radiative heat transfer for structured surfaces

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytical, perturbative method to calculate near-field radiative heat transfer between a metallic nanosphere and a structured surface, with potential applications in thermal microscopy.

Contribution

It introduces a first-order perturbative approach for structured surfaces in near-field heat transfer, expanding analytical capabilities beyond flat geometries.

Findings

Numerical results demonstrate the method's effectiveness for simple geometries.

Signatures of surface structure effects are identified for near-field thermal microscopy.

The approach provides insights into surface profile influences on heat transfer.

Abstract

We apply an analytical approach for determining the near-field radiative heat transfer between a metallic nanosphere and a planar semi-infinite medium with some given surface structure. This approach is based on a perturbative expansion, and evaluated to first order in the surface profile. With the help of numerical results obtained for some simple model geometries we discuss typical signatures that should be obtainable with a near-field scanning thermal microscope operated in either constant-height or constant-distance mode.