Incandescent temporal metamaterials

Abstract

Regarded as a promising alternative to spatially shaping matter, time-varying media can be seized to control and manipulate wave phenomena, including thermal radiation. Here, based upon the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, we elaborate a comprehensive quantum theoretical formulation that lies the basis for investigating thermal emission effects in time-modulated media. Our theory unveils new physics brought about by time-varying media: nontrivial correlations between thermal fluctuating currents at different frequencies and positions, thermal radiation overcoming the black-body spectrum, and quantum vacuum amplification effects at finite temperature. We illustrate how these features lead to striking phenomena and novel thermal emitters, specifically, showing that the time-modulation releases strong field fluctuations confined within epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) bodies, and that, in turn, it enables a narrowband (partially coherent) emission spanning the whole range of wavevectors, from near to far-field regimes.

Main text (11 pages, 5 figures) + Supplementary Information (32 pages)

References in corpus (6)

• Amplified Emission by Atoms and Lasing in Photonic Time Crystals
• Double-slit time diffraction at optical frequencies
• Rotational Quantum Friction
• Wood Anomalies and Surface-Wave Excitation with a Time-Grating
• $\hslash \omega$ versus $\hslash \mathbf{k}$: Dispersion and Energy Constraints on Time-Varying Photonic Materials and Time Crystals
• Super-Planckian Far-Field Radiative Heat Transfer

Cited by in corpus (17)

• New horizons in near-zero refractive index photonics and hyperbolic metamaterials
• Time-modulated near-field radiative heat transfer
• Modulating near-field thermal transfer through temporal drivings: a quantum many-body theory
• Temporal refraction and reflection in modulated mechanical metabeams: theory and physical observation
• Non-Markovian quantum interconnect formed by a surface plasmon polariton waveguide
• Spatiotemporal cascading of dielectric waveguides
• Broadband Dipole Absorption in Dispersive Photonic Time Crystals
• Asymmetry-induced radiative heat transfer in Floquet systems
• Many-Body Floquet Theory for Radiative Heat Transfer in Time-Modulated Systems
• Emergence of an Epsilon-Near-Zero Medium from Microscopic Atomic Principles
• Near-field dynamical Casimir effect
• Time-dependent radiative heat flux after the beginning of thermal radiation
• Clarification of Floquet--Enhanced Thermal Emission Through the Nonequilibrium Green's Function Formalism
• Resonant states of structured photonic time crystals
• Studying thermal radiation with T-matrices
• Interference-Controlled Radiative Heat Transport in Time-Modulated Networks
• Non-equilibrium Green's function formalism for radiative heat transfer