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Radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale

Nature Photonics volume 3, pages 514–517 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Heat can be exchanged between two surfaces through emission and absorption of thermal radiation. It has been predicted theoretically that for distances smaller than the peak wavelength of the blackbody spectrum, radiative heat transfer can be increased by the contribution of evanescent waves1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. This contribution can be viewed as energy tunnelling through the gap between the surfaces. Although these effects have already been observed9,10,11,12,13,14, a detailed quantitative comparison between theory and experiments in the nanometre regime is still lacking. Here, we report an experimental setup that allows measurement of conductance for gaps varying between 30 nm and 2.5 µm. Our measurements pave the way for the design of submicrometre nanoscale heaters that could be used for heat-assisted magnetic recording or heat-assisted lithography.

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Figure 1: Experimental setup.
Figure 2: The Derjaguin approximation.
Figure 3: Thermal conductance between the sphere with diameter 40 µm and the plate as a function of gap distance.
Figure 4: Thermal conductance between the sphere and the plate as a function of the gap for two sphere diameters (40 and 22 µm).

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of Agence Nationale de la Recherche through Monaco projects and Léti-Carnot Institute. J.-J.G. and E.R. thank P.O. Chapuis for fruitful discussions. J.C. and A.S. thank S. Huant for support and fruitful discussions.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Sebastian Volz

    Present address: Present address: LIMMS, UMI CNRS 2820-IIS, Center for International Research on MicroMechatronics, CIRMM, Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan,

  2. Emmanuel Rousseau and Alessandro Siria: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris-sud, Campus Polytechnique, RD 128, Palaiseau, 91127, France

    Emmanuel Rousseau & Jean-Jacques Greffet

  2. Institut Néel – CNRS and Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, 38042, France

    Alessandro Siria & Joël Chevrier

  3. CEA/LETI MINATEC/DIHS/LCMS, 17 rue des Martyrs, Grenoble cedex 9, 38054, France

    Alessandro Siria & Guillaume Jourdan

  4. ESRF, 6 rue Horowitz, Grenoble Cedex, 38042, France

    Fabio Comin

  5. Laboratoire EM2C-CNRS UPR 288, École Centrale Paris, Grande voie des vignes, Châtenay-Malabry, 92295, France

    Sebastian Volz

Authors
  1. Emmanuel Rousseau
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  7. Jean-Jacques Greffet
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Correspondence to Jean-Jacques Greffet.

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Rousseau, E., Siria, A., Jourdan, G. et al. Radiative heat transfer at the nanoscale. Nature Photon 3, 514–517 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.144

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