Smart thermal management with near-field thermal radiation

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in controlling near-field radiative heat transfer, which exceeds traditional limits at subwavelength gaps, enabling improved thermal management technologies.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of passive and active methods for manipulating near-field thermal radiation in various systems.

Findings

Near-field radiation can surpass blackbody limits by orders of magnitude.

Control techniques include passive structures and active modulation.

Applications include enhanced thermal management and energy harvesting.

Abstract

When two objects at different temperatures are separated by a vacuum gap they can exchange heat by radiation only. At large separation distances (far-field regime) the amount of transferred heat flux is limited by Stefan-Boltzmann's law (blackbody limit). In contrast, at subwavelength distances (near-field regime) this limit can be exceeded by orders of magnitude thanks to the contributions of evanescent waves. This article reviews the recent progress on the passive and active control of near-field radiative heat exchange in two- and many-body systems.