Radiative heat transfer between nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper simplifies the Polder and Van Hove formalism to analyze radiative heat transfer between nanostructures, focusing on non-retarded limits and various geometries, highlighting the effects of shape, separation, and retardation.

Contribution

The paper provides a simplified electrostatic approach to calculate radiative heat transfer between complex nanostructures, extending previous formalism to practical geometries.

Findings

Heat transfer depends on temperature, shape, and separation.

Retardation effects become significant at larger distances.

Analytical solutions for specific geometries are provided.

Abstract

We simplify the formalism of Polder and Van Hove [Phys.Rev.B {\bf 4}, 3303(1971)], which was developed to calculate the heat transfer between macroscopic and nanoscale bodies of arbitrary shape, dispersive and adsorptive dielectric properties. In the non-retarded limit, at small distances between the bodies, the problem is reduced to the solution of an electrostatic problem. We apply the formalism to the study of the heat transfer between: (a) two parallel semi-infinite bodies, (b) a semi-infinite body and a spherical body, and (c) that two spherical bodies. We consider the dependence of the heat transfer on the temperature $T$, the shape and the separation $d$. We determine when retardation effects become important.