Conduction-radiation coupling between two closely-separated solids

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theory for conduction-radiation coupling between two closely-separated solids, revealing that conduction effects can significantly reduce radiative heat transfer at nanometric distances, impacting nanoscale thermal applications.

Contribution

The authors introduce a general theory that accounts for conduction-radiation interplay in arbitrary-sized solids separated by subwavelength gaps, extending beyond previous models.

Findings

Radiative heat flux can be orders of magnitude smaller than traditional predictions.

Temperature profiles induced by conduction significantly influence radiative exchange.

Implications for nanoscale thermal management and energy conversion are substantial.

Abstract

In the theory of radiative heat exchanges between two closely-spaced bodies introduced by Polder and van Hove, no interplay between the heat carriers inside the materials and the photons crossing the separation gap is assumed. Here we release this constraint by developing a general theory to describe the conduction-radiation coupling between two solids of arbitrary size separated by a subwavelength separation gap. We show that, as a result of the temperature profile induced by the coupling with conduction, the radiative heat flux exchanged between two parallel slabs at nanometric distances can be several orders of magnitude smaller than the one predicted by the conventional theory. These results could have important implications in the fields of nanoscale thermal management, near-field solid-state cooling and nanoscale energy conversion.