Near-Field Radiative Heat Transfer Eigenmodes

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical eigenmode-based framework to analyze the complex temporal dynamics of near-field radiative heat transfer among nanostructures, revealing fundamental principles and enabling efficient analysis of large nanoparticle systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel eigenmode expansion formalism to describe near-field radiative heat transfer dynamics, providing insights into thermalization processes in nanostructure ensembles.

Findings

Identifies fundamental principles governing thermalization.

Reveals unintuitive dynamics in heat transfer.

Provides an efficient method for large systems analysis.

Abstract

The near-field electromagnetic interaction between nanoscale objects produces enhanced radiative heat transfer that can greatly surpass the limits established by far-field black-body radiation. Here, we present a theoretical framework to describe the temporal dynamics of the radiative heat transfer in ensembles of nanostructures, which is based on the use of an eigenmode expansion of the equations that govern this process. Using this formalism, we identify the fundamental principles that determine the thermalization of collections of nanostructures, revealing general but often unintuitive dynamics. Our results provide an elegant and precise approach to efficiently analyze the temporal dynamics of the near-field radiative heat transfer in systems containing a large number of nanoparticles.