Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Enhancement of near-field radiative heat transfer using polar dielectric thin films

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 253–258 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Thermal radiative emission from a hot surface to a cold surface plays an important role in many applications, including energy conversion, thermal management, lithography, data storage and thermal microscopy1,2. Recent studies3,4,5 on bulk materials have confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions indicating that when the gap between the surfaces is reduced to tens of nanometres, well below the peak wavelength of the blackbody emission spectrum, the radiative heat flux increases by orders of magnitude. However, despite recent attempts6, whether such enhancements can be obtained in nanoscale dielectric films thinner than the penetration depth of thermal radiation, as suggested by theory, remains experimentally unknown. Here, using an experimental platform that comprises a heat-flow calorimeter with a resolution of about 100 pW (ref. 7), we experimentally demonstrate a dramatic increase in near-field radiative heat transfer, comparable to that obtained between bulk materials, even for very thin dielectric films (50–100 nm) when the spatial separation between the hot and cold surfaces is comparable to the film thickness. We explain these results by analysing the spectral characteristics and mode shapes of surface phonon polaritons, which dominate near-field radiative heat transport in polar dielectric thin films.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Experimental set-up and devices.
Figure 2: Gap-dependent near-field thermal conductance of thin films.
Figure 3: Computed heat transfer coefficients.
Figure 4: Role of surface phonon polaritons in near-field radiative heat transfer.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Wilde, Y. D. et al. Thermal radiation scanning tunnelling microscopy. Nature 444, 740–743 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Jones, A. C., O'Callahan, B. T., Yang, H. U. & Raschke, M. B. The thermal near-field: coherence, spectroscopy, heat-transfer, and optical forces. Prog. Surf. Sci. 88, 349–392 (2013).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Rousseau, E. et al. Radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale. Nature Photon. 3, 514–517 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Shen, S., Narayanaswamy, A. & Chen, G. Surface phonon polaritons mediated energy transfer between nanoscale gaps. Nano Lett. 9, 2909–2913 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Kittel, A. et al. Near-field heat transfer in a scanning thermal microscope. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 224301 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Worbes, L., Hellmann, D. & Kittel, A. Enhanced near-field heat flow of a monolayer dielectric island. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 134302 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Sadat, S., Meyhofer, E. & Reddy, P. Resistance thermometry-based picowatt-resolution heat-flow calorimeter. Appl. Phys. Lett. 102, 163110 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Challener, W. A. et al. Heat-assisted magnetic recording by a near-field transducer with efficient optical energy transfer. Nature Photon. 3, 220–224 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Pendry, J. B. Radiative exchange of heat between nanostructures. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 11, 6621–6633 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Otey, C., Lau, W. T. & Fan, S. Thermal rectification through vacuum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 154301 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Rodriguez, A. W. et al. Frequency-selective near-field radiative heat transfer between photonic crystal slabs: a computational approach for arbitrary geometries and materials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 114302 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Guha, B., Otey, C., Poitras, C. B., Fan, S. H. & Lipson, M. Near-field radiative cooling of nanostructures. Nano Lett. 12, 4546–4550 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Van Zwol, P. J., Ranno, L. & Chevrier, J. Tuning near field radiative heat flux through surface excitations with a metal insulator transition. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 234301 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Ben-Abdallah, P. & Biehs, S. A. Near-field thermal transistor. Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 044301 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Polder, D. & Hove, M. A. V. Theory of radiative heat transfer between closely spaced bodies. Phys. Rev. B 4, 3303–3314 (1971).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Joulain, K., Mulet, J-P., Marquier, F., Carminati, R. & Greffet, J-J. Surface electromagnetic waves thermally excited: radiative heat transfer, coherence properties and Casimir forces revisited in the near field. Surf. Sci. Rep. 57, 59–112 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Volokitin, A. I. & Persson, B. N. J. Near-field radiative heat transfer and noncontact friction. Rev. Mod. Phys. 79, 1291–1329 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Basu, S., Zhang, Z. & Fu, C. Review of near-field thermal radiation and its application to energy conversion. Int. J. Energ. Res. 33, 1203–1232 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Biehs, S. A. Thermal heat radiation, near-field energy density and near-field radiative heat transfer of coated materials. Eur. Phys. J. B 58, 423–431 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Francoeur, M., Menguc, M. P. & Vaillon, R. Coexistence of multiple regimes for near-field thermal radiation between two layers supporting surface phonon polaritons in the infrared. Phys. Rev. B 84, 075436 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Basu, S. & Zhang, Z. M. Ultrasmall penetration depth in nanoscale thermal radiation. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 133104 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ganjeh, Y. et al. A platform to parallelize planar surfaces and control their spatial separation with nanometer resolution. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 105101 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Cahill, D. G. et al. Nanoscale thermal transport. II. 2003–2012. Appl. Phys. Rev. 1, 011305 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Rytov, S. M., Kravtsov, I. A. & Tatarskii, V. I. Principles of Statistical Radiophysics 2nd edn, Vol. 3 (Springer-Verlag, 1987).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  25. Whittaker, D. M. & Culshaw, I. S. Scattering-matrix treatment of patterned multilayer photonic structures. Phys. Rev. B 60, 2610–2618 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Derjaguin, B. V., Abrikosova, I. I. & Lifshitz, E. M. Direct measurement of molecular attraction between solids separated by a narrow gap. Q. Rev. Chem. Soc. 10, 295–329 (1956).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Biehs, S. A., Rousseau, E. & Greffet, J. J. Mesoscopic description of radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale. Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 234301 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Francoeur, M., Menguc, M. P. & Vaillon, R. Near-field radiative heat transfer enhancement via surface phonon polaritons coupling in thin films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 043109 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Rodriguez, A. W. et al. Anomalous near-field heat transfer between a cylinder and a perforated surface. Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 014301 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Lenert, A. et al. A nanophotonic solar thermophotovoltaic device. Nature Nanotech. 9, 126–130 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

P.R. and E.M. acknowledge support from the Army Research Office (W911NF-12-1-0612; device fabrication) and the National Science Foundation (CBET 1235691; instrumentation and measurements). J.C.C. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MICINN (contract no. FIS2011-28851-C02-01) and thanks E. Moreno for helpful discussions. V.F-H. acknowledges financial support from ‘la Caixa’ Foundation. F.J.G-V. and J.F. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC-2011-AdG proposal no. 290981). The authors acknowledge the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility (LNF) for facilitating the nanofabrication of devices.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Bai Song, Yashar Ganjeh and Seid Sadat: These authors contributed equally to this paper

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 48109, Michigan, USA

    Bai Song, Yashar Ganjeh, Seid Sadat, Dakotah Thompson, Anthony Fiorino, Pramod Reddy & Edgar Meyhofer

  2. Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, 28049, Spain

    Víctor Fernández-Hurtado, Johannes Feist, Francisco J. Garcia-Vidal & Juan Carlos Cuevas

  3. Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), Donostia/San Sebastián, 20018, Spain

    Francisco J. Garcia-Vidal

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Michigan, 48109, Ann Arbor, USA

    Pramod Reddy

Authors
  1. Bai Song
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yashar Ganjeh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Seid Sadat
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Dakotah Thompson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Anthony Fiorino
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Víctor Fernández-Hurtado
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Johannes Feist
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Francisco J. Garcia-Vidal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Juan Carlos Cuevas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Pramod Reddy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Edgar Meyhofer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The work was conceived by P.R. and E.M. The experiments were performed by B.S., Y.G. and A.F. under supervision by E.M. and P.R. The devices were designed and fabricated by S.S., D.T. and B.S. Modelling was performed by V.F-H. and J.F. under the supervision of F.J.G-V. and J.C.C. The manuscript was written by P.R., E.M. and J.C.C. with comments and input from all authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Pramod Reddy or Edgar Meyhofer.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary information (PDF 20318 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Song, B., Ganjeh, Y., Sadat, S. et al. Enhancement of near-field radiative heat transfer using polar dielectric thin films. Nature Nanotech 10, 253–258 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.6

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing