Maximal near-field radiative heat transfer between two plates

Abstract

A parametric study of Drude and Lorentz models performances in maximizing near-field radiative heat transfer between two semi-infinite planes separated by nanometric distances at room temperature is presented in this paper. Optimal parameters of these models that provide optical properties maximizing the radiative heat flux are reported and compared to real materials usually considered in similar studies, silicon carbide and heavily doped silicon in this case. Results are obtained by exact and approximate (in the extreme near-field regime and the electrostatic limit hypothesis) calculations. The two methods are compared in terms of accuracy and CPU resources consumption. Their differences are explained according to a mesoscopic description of near-field radiative heat transfer. Finally, the frequently assumed hypothesis which states a maximal radiative heat transfer when the two semi-infinite planes are of identical materials is numerically confirmed. Its subsequent practical constraints are then discussed.

19 pages, 11 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics D : Applied Physics

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• Effects of spatial dispersion in near-field radiative heat transfer between two parallel metallic surfaces
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Shape-Independent Limits to Near-Field Radiative Heat Transfer
• Radiative Thermal Rectification between SiC and SiO2
• External luminescence and photon recycling in near-field thermophotovoltaics
• Overcoming limits to near-field radiative heat transfer in uniform planar media through multilayer optimization
• Time-dependent radiative heat flux after the beginning of thermal radiation