Search

A generalized fluctuational electrodynamics-based many-body approach for calculating near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between nonspherical dipoles is proposed. The geometric parameters of nonspherical dipoles are implemented in the definition of the self-term of the free-space Green's function and, conversely to previous many-body models of NFRHT, dipole polarizability is defined a posteriori from the free-space Green's function solution such that polarizability calculation is an optional post-processing step rather than a required input. Both strong and weak forms of the generalized many-body approach are presented. It is shown that the approximate weak form is less computationally expensive but is only applicable to small particles characterized by size parameters less than ~0.24. The generalized many-body method is compared against an analytical solution for NFRHT between two spheroidal dipoles. Acceptable agreement is obtained, and the discrepancies are ascribed to differences in approximations for multiple reflections and from the way in which particle orientation is implemented in each method. The generalized many-body method is then applied to analyze the near-field spectral conductance between two SiC ellipsoidal dipoles. Results reveal that changes in the orientation of one of the ellipsoidal dipoles lead to active tuning of localized surface phonon resonance by up to three orders of magnitude. Finally, the spectral radiative thermal conductivity of a metamaterial composed of 1000 SiO2 ellipsoidal particles is studied. The metamaterial displays anisotropic radiative thermal conductivity, with differences in the value at resonance up to 2.8 times between different directions. The generalized many-body model of NFRHT presented in this paper may be used to develop particle-based metamaterials with novel, engineered radiative thermal properties., Comment: 43 pages, 7 figures, 2 supplemental figures

It is well established that near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) can exceed Planck's blackbody limit1 by orders of magnitude owing to the tunneling of evanescent electromagnetic frustrated and surface modes2-4, as has been demonstrated experimentally for NFRHT between two large parallel surfaces5-7 and between two subwavelength membranes8,9. However, while nanostructures can also sustain a much richer variety of localized electromagnetic modes at their corners and edges,10,11 the contributions of such additional modes to further enhancing NFRHT remain unexplored. Here, for the first time, we demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally a new physical mechanism of NFRHT mediated by these corner and edge modes, and show it can dominate the NFRHT in the "dual nanoscale regime" in which both the thickness of the emitter and receiver, and their gap spacing, are much smaller than the thermal photon wavelengths. For two coplanar 20 nm thick SiC membranes separated by a 100 nm vacuum gap, the NFRHT coefficient at room temperature is both predicted and measured to be 830 W/m2K, which is 5.5 times larger than that for two infinite SiC surfaces separated by the same gap, and 1400 times larger than the corresponding blackbody limit accounting for the geometric view factor between the emitter and receiver. This enhancement is dominated by the electromagnetic corner and edge modes which account for 81% of the NFRHT between these SiC membranes. These findings are important for future NFRHT applications in thermal management and energy conversion., Comment: 58 pages, 20 figures, 1 table

Pyromark 2500 is a widely used coating for concentrated solar power central receiver systems due to its high absorptivity, ease in application, and relatively low cost. Pyromark's performance is quantified by its figure of merit (FOM), which relates the coating's heat losses to its solar-to-thermal conversion efficiency. After long-term exposure to high temperatures (>750{\deg}C) and irradiance levels, Pyromark's absorptivity and FOM decrease. The aim of this research is to evaluate changes in Pyromark's absorptivity, heat losses, and FOM as a function of thermal aging. This work also compares the most common FOM expression, which neglects convection losses, to an FOM that includes all heat losses experienced by a central receiver. Isothermal aging experiments are conducted on Pyromark-coated Inconel 600 substrates at 750{\deg}C. The spectral, hemispherical absorptivity of the samples is measured at room temperature with a spectrophotometer and input into a finite element analysis model that includes radiation and convection boundary conditions. The heat flux and temperature output by the model are used to determine the heat losses and FOM of the Pyromark samples. After 151 h of thermal aging, the sample with the thinnest Pyromark coat maintains the most stable total, hemispherical absorptivity. Conversely, the total, hemispherical absorptivity of the sample with the thickest Pyromark coat drops by a maximum of 1.73%, and the corresponding maximum drop in FOM is 1.90% when windy conditions (which are expected around central receivers) are assumed. In windy conditions, convection losses constitute between 21% and 24% of the samples' total heat loss; thus, the most common FOM expression in the literature overestimates the samples' FOM by ~4.40%. An analysis of the samples' heat losses indicates that reflection losses exceed emission losses when the absorptivity declines significantly., Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables

We model near-field thermal emission from metasurfaces structured as two-dimensional arrays of ellipsoidal SiC particles. The modeling approach is developed from fluctuational electrodynamics and is applicable to systems of ellipsoidal particles within the dipole limit. In all simulations, the radial lengths of particles are restricted to the range of 10 to 100 nm, and interparticle spacing is constrained to at least three times the particle characteristic length. The orientation and dimensions of constituent ellipsoidal particles are varied to tune localized surface phonon resonances and control the near-field energy density above metasurfaces. Results show that particle orientation can be used to regulate the relative magnitude of resonances in the energy density and particle dimensions may be changed to adjust the frequency of these resonances within the Reststrahlen band. Metasurfaces constructed from particles with randomized dimensions display comparatively broadband thermal emission rather than the three distinct resonances seen in metasurfaces made with ellipsoidal particles of equivalent dimensions. When the interparticle spacing in a metasurface exceeds about three times the particle characteristic length, the spectral energy density above the metasurface is dominated by individual particle self-interaction and can be approximated as a linear combination of single-particle spectra. When interparticle spacing is at the lower limit of three times the characteristic length, however, multiparticle interaction effects increase, and the spectral energy density above a metasurface deviates from that of single particles. This work provides guidance for designing all-dielectric, particle-based metasurfaces with desired near-field thermal emission spectra, such as thermal switches., Comment: 50 pages, 5 figures, 9 supporting figures, 2 supporting tables

The effect of orientation on near-field radiative heat transfer between two complex-shaped superellipsoid particles of SiO2 is presented. The particles under study are 50 nm in radius and of variable concavity. Orientation is characterized by the degree of rotational symmetry in the two-particle systems, and the radiative conductance is calculated using the discrete system Green's function approach to account for all electromagnetic interactions. Results reveal that the total conductance in some orientations can be up to twice that of other orientations when particles are at center-of-mass separation distances of 110 nm. Orientation effects are not significantly correlated with system rotational symmetries but are strongly correlated with the minimum vacuum gap distance between particles. As such, orientation effects on near-field radiative heat transfer are a consequence of particle topology, with more extreme topologies leading to a continuation of orientation effects at larger particle center-of-mass separation distances. The concave superellipsoid particles display significant orientation effects up to a center-of-mass separation distance approximately equal to 3.9 times the particle radius, while the convex superellipsoid particles display significant orientation effects up to a center-of-mass separation distance approximately equal to 3.2 times the particle radius. In contrast to previous anisotropic, spheroidal dipole studies, these results of complex-shaped superellipsoid particles suggest that orientation effects become negligible when heat transfer is a volumetric process for all orientations. This work is essential for understanding radiative transport between particles that have non-regular geometries or that may have geometrical defects or abnormalities., Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures, 5 supplementary figures, 2 supplementary tables

Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between irregularly shaped dielectric particles made of SiO2 and morphology characterized by Gaussian random spheres is studied. Particles are modeled using the discrete system Green's function (DSGF) approach, which is a volume integral numerical method based on fluctuational electrodynamics. This method is applicable to finite, three-dimensional objects, and all system interactions are defined independent of thermal excitation by a generalized system Green's function. The DSGF method is deemed suitable to model NFRHT between irregularly shaped particles after verification against the analytical solution for chains of two and three SiO2 spheres. The NFRHT results reveal that geometric irregularity in particles leads to a reduction of the total conductance from that of comparable perfect spheres at vacuum separation distances smaller than the particle size, a regime in which NFRHT is a surface phenomenon. At vacuum separation distances larger than the particle size, NFRHT becomes a volumetric process, and the total conductance between irregularly shaped particles converges to that of comparable perfect spheres. Spectral analysis reveals, however, that particle irregularity leads to damping and broadening of resonances at all separation distances, thereby highlighting the importance of the DSGF method for spectral engineering in the near field. The reduced spectral coherence when particle size is larger than the vacuum separation distance is attributed to coupling of surface phonon-polaritons within the randomly generated, distorted particle features. For particle size smaller than the vacuum separation distance, resonance broadening and damping is linked with the multiple localized surface phonon modes supported by the composite spherical harmonic morphologies of the Gaussian random spheres., Comment: 59 pages, 9 figures, 6 supplementary figures

Phonon transport across a vacuum gap separating intrinsic silicon crystals is predicted via the atomistic Green's function method combined with first-principles calculations of all interatomic force constants. The overlap of electron wave functions in the vacuum gap generates weak covalent interaction between the silicon surfaces, thus creating a pathway for phonons. Phonon transport, dominated by acoustic modes, exceeds near-field radiation for vacuum gaps smaller than ~ 1 nm. The first-principles-based approach proposed in this work is critical to accurately quantify the contribution of phonon transport to heat transfer in the extreme near field., Comment: 31 pages, 4 figures, 4 supplemental figures

Extreme near-field heat transfer between metallic surfaces is a subject of debate as the state-of-the-art theory and experiments are in disagreement on the energy carriers driving heat transport. In an effort to elucidate the physics of extreme near-field heat transfer between metallic surfaces, this Letter presents a comprehensive model combining radiation, acoustic phonon and electron transport across sub-10-nm vacuum gaps. The results obtained for gold surfaces show that in the absence of bias voltage, acoustic phonon transport is dominant for vacuum gaps smaller than ~2 nm. The application of a bias voltage significantly affects the dominant energy carriers as it increases the phonon contribution mediated by the long-range Coulomb force and the electron contribution due to a lower potential barrier. For a bias voltage of 0.6 V, acoustic phonon transport becomes dominant at a vacuum gap of 5 nm, whereas electron tunneling dominates at sub-1-nm vacuum gaps. The comparison of the theory against experimental data from the literature suggests that well-controlled measurements between metallic surfaces are needed to quantify the contributions of acoustic phonon and electron as a function of the bias voltage., Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, 2 supplementary figures

The figure of merit (FOM) is a widely used metric to characterize the performance of concentrated solar power (CSP) receivers by comparing the amount of solar thermal energy retained by the receiver to the incident concentrated solar radiation. However, the FOM is a strong function of the concentration factor and receiver temperature, thus direct comparison of FOM values measured under disparate operating conditions is inappropriate. To remedy this problem, the present study proposes a new metric called the receiver effectiveness calculated by normalizing the actual FOM with its theoretical maximum. The receiver effectiveness can be employed for comparing receiver performances regardless of their operating conditions, and can be treated as more-like the second law efficiency of thermodynamics. In addition, a theoretical limit of the CSP plant efficiency is also examined by combining the maximum FOM and the Carnot efficiency for different concentration factors and receiver temperatures. The calculated maximum CSP plant efficiency clearly indicate that optimizing FOM does not always lead to a better CSP plant performance. Along with the FOM, the proposed receiver effectiveness and maximum CSP system efficiency should be considered as complementary metrics to evaluate the performance of the CSP system., Comment: The work is incomplete and needed significant changes and additional work

In traditional cochlear implant surgery, physical trauma may occur during electrode array insertion. Magnetic guidance of the electrode array has been proposed to mitigate this medical complication. After insertion, the guiding magnet attached to the tip of the electrode array must be detached via a heating process and removed. This heating process may, however, cause thermal trauma within the cochlea. In this study, a validated three-dimensional finite element heat transfer model of the human cochlea is applied to perform an intracochlear thermal analysis necessary to ensure the safety of the magnet removal phase. Specifically, the maximum safe input power density to detach the magnet is determined as a function of the boundary conditions, heating duration, cochlea size, implant electrode array radius and insertion depth, magnet size, and cochlear fluid. A dimensional analysis and numerical simulations reveal that the maximum safe input power density increases with increasing cochlea size and the radius of the electrode array, whereas it decreases with increasing electrode array insertion depth and magnet size. The best cochlear fluids from the thermal perspective are perilymph and a soap solution. Even for the worst case scenario in which the cochlear walls are assumed to be adiabatic except at the round window, the maximum safe input power density is larger than that required to melt 1 $\rm{mm^3}$ of paraffin bonding the magnet to the implant electrode array. By combining the outcome of this work with other aspects of the design of the magnetic insertion process, namely the magnetic guidance procedure and medical requirements, it will be possible to implement a thermally safe patient-specific surgical procedure., Comment: This paper is submitted to the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer on 11/19/2020

Magnetic guidance of cochlear implants is a promising technique to reduce the risk of physical trauma during surgery. In this approach, a magnet attached to the tip of the implant electrode array is guided within the scala tympani using a magnetic field. After surgery, the magnet must be detached from the implant electrode array via localized heating and removed from the scala tympani which may cause thermal trauma. Objectives: The objective of this work is to experimentally validate a three-dimensional (3D) heat transfer model of the scala tympani which will enable accurate predictions of the maximum safe input power to avoid localized hyperthermia when detaching the magnet from the implant electrode array. Methods: Experiments are designed using a rigorous scale analysis and performed by measuring transient temperatures in a 3D-printed scala tympani phantom subjected to a sudden change in its thermal environment and localized heating via a small heat source. Results: The measured and predicted temperatures are in good agreement with an error less than 6$\%$. Conclusions: The validated 3D heat transfer model of the scala tympani is finally applied to evaluate the maximum safe input power to avoid localized hyperthermia when detaching the magnet. For the most conservative case where all boundaries except the insertion opening are adiabatic, the power required to release the magnet attached to the implant electrode array by 1 mm$^3$ of paraffin is approximately half of the predicted maximum safe input power. Significance: This work will enable the design of a thermally safe magnetic cochlear implant surgery procedure., Comment: This paper is submitted to the IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering and it is under review

Near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between dissimilar materials supporting surface polaritons in the infrared is of critical importance for applications such as photonic thermal rectification and near-field thermophotovoltaics. Here, we measure NFRHT between millimetersize surfaces made of 6H-SiC and doped Si, respectively supporting surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) and surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) in the infrared, separated by a 150-nm-thick vacuum gap spacing maintained via SiO2 nanopillars. For purpose of comparison, measurements are also performed between two doped Si surfaces. The measured radiative flux is in good agreement with theoretical predictions based on fluctuational electrodynamics. A flux enhancement beyond the blackbody limit of ~ 8.2 is obtained for the SiC-Si sample, which is smaller than the enhancement for the Si-Si sample (~ 12.5) owing to the spectral mismatch of the SiC and Si light lines, and SPhP and SPP resonances. However, due to lower losses in SiC than Si and weaker SPhP-SPP coupling than SPP coupling, the near-field enhancement for the SiC-Si sample exhibits a more pronounced monochromatic behavior with a resonant flux that is ~ 5 times larger than the resonant flux for the Si-Si sample. This work demonstrates that it is possible to modulate NFRHT via surface polariton coupling, and will accelerate the development of energy conversion and thermal management devices capitalizing on the near-field effects of thermal radiation between dissimilar materials., Comment: 37 pages, 4 figures, 6 supplementary figures

A general formulation for the cross-spectral density tensor enabling calculation of the spatial correlation of the thermally generated electromagnetic field in layered media is derived. The formulation is based on fluctuational electrodynamics, and is thus applicable in the near and far field of heat sources. The resulting cross-spectral density tensor is written in terms of a single integration over the parallel wavevector, as the angular integrations leading to numerical instability are evaluated analytically. Using this formulation, the spatial correlation length in the near field of a film made of silicon carbide (SiC) supporting surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) in the infrared is analyzed. It is shown that the spatial correlation length of a SiC heat source suspended in vacuum decreases substantially by decreasing its thickness owing to SPhP coupling. In the limit of a 10-nm-thick SiC film, the spatial correlation length is similar to that of a blackbody. The results also reveal that it is possible to control the spatial coherence of a thin SiC heat source via dielectric and metallic substrates, respectively allowing and preventing SPhP coupling. This suggests that active modulation of thermal emission via thin films supporting surface polaritons in the infrared is possible by using a phase change material substrate such as vanadium dioxide., Comment: 39 pages; 5 figures; 2 supplemental figures

An indium arsenide photovoltaic cell with gold front contacts is designed for use in a near-field thermophotovoltaic (NF-TPV) device consisting of millimeter-size surfaces separated by a nanosize vacuum gap. The device operates with a doped silicon radiator maintained at a temperature of 800 K. The architecture of the photovoltaic cell, including the emitter and base thicknesses, the doping level of the base, and the front contact grid parameters, are optimized for maximizing NF-TPV power output. This is accomplished by solving radiation and charge transport in the cell via fluctuational electrodynamics and the minority charge carrier continuity equations, in addition to accounting for the shading losses due to the front contacts and additional series resistance losses introduced by the front contacts and the substrate. The results reveal that these additional loss mechanisms negatively affect NF-TPV performance in a non-negligible manner, and that the maximum power output is a trade-off between shading losses and series resistance losses introduced by the front contacts. For instance, when the cell is optimized for a 1 x 1 mm2 device operating at a vacuum gap of 100 nm, the losses introduced by the front contacts reduce the maximum power output by a factor of ~ 2.5 compared to the idealized case when no front contact grid is present. If the optimized grid for the 1 x 1 mm2 device is scaled up for a 5 x 5 mm2 device, the maximum power output is only increased by a factor of ~ 1.08 with respect to the 1 x 1 mm2 case despite an increase of the surface area by a factor of 25. This work demonstrates that the photovoltaic cell in a NF-TPV device must be designed not only for a specific radiator temperature, but also for specific gap thickness and device surface area., Comment: 48 pages; 6 figures; 4 tables; 2 supplementary figures

Magnetic cochlear implant surgery requires removal of a magnet via a heating process after implant insertion, which may cause thermal trauma within the ear. Intra-cochlear heat transfer analysis is required to ensure that the magnet removal phase is thermally safe. The objective of this work is to determine the safe range of input power density to detach the magnet without causing thermal trauma in the ear, and to analyze the effectiveness of natural convection with respect to conduction for removing the excess heat. A finite element model of an uncoiled cochlea, which is verified and validated, is applied to determine the range of maximum safe input power density to detach a 1-mm-long, 0.5-mm-diameter cylindrical magnet from the cochlear implant electrode array tip. It is shown that heat dissipation in the cochlea is primarily mediated by conduction through the electrode array. The electrode array simultaneously reduces natural convection due to the no-slip boundary condition on its surface and increases axial conduction in the cochlea. It is concluded that natural convection heat transfer in a cochlea during robotic cochlear implant surgery can be neglected. It is found that thermal trauma is avoided by applying a power density from $2.265 \times 10^7$ W/m$^3$ for 114 s to $6.6\times10^7$ W/m$^3$ for 9 s resulting in a maximum temperature increase of 6$^\circ$C on the magnet boundary., Comment: 30 pages, 11 figures

Systems of many nanoparticles or volume-discretized bodies exhibit collective radiative properties that could be used for enhanced, guided, or tunable thermal radiation. These are commonly treated as assemblies of point dipoles with interactions described by Maxwell's equations and thermal fluctuations correlated by the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. Here, we unify different theoretical descriptions of these systems and provide a complete derivation of many-dipole thermal radiation, showing that the correct use of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem depends on the definitions of fluctuating and induced dipole moments. We formulate a method to calculate the diffusive radiative thermal conductivity of arbitrary collections of nanoparticles; this allows the comparison of thermal radiation to other heat transfer modes and across different material systems. We calculate the radiative thermal conductivity of ordered and disordered arrays of SiC and SiO2 nanoparticles and show that thermal radiation can significantly contribute to thermal transport in these systems. We validate our calculations by comparison to the exact solution for a one-dimensional particle chain, and we demonstrate that the dipolar approximation significantly underpredicts the exact results at separation distances less than the particle radius., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures

Acoustic phonon transport is revealed as a potential radiation-to-conduction transition mechanism for single-digit nanometer vacuum gaps. To show this, we measure heat transfer from a feedback-controlled platinum nanoheater to a laterally oscillating silicon tip as the tip-nanoheater vacuum gap distance is precisely controlled from a single-digit nanometer down to bulk contact in a high-vacuum shear force microscope. The measured thermal conductance shows a gap dependence of $d^{-5.7\pm1.1}$ in the near-contact regime, which is in good agreement with acoustic phonon transport modeling based on the atomistic Green's function framework. The obtained experimental and theoretical results suggest that acoustic phonon transport across a nanoscale vacuum gap can be the dominant heat transfer mechanism in the near- and asperity-contact regimes and can potentially be controlled by an external force stimuli., Comment: 49 pages, 17 figures (including the main text, appendix, and supplemental material)

Recently, many works have experimentally demonstrated near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) exceeding the far-field blackbody limit between planar surfaces. Due to the difficulties associated with maintaining the nanosize gaps required for measuring a near-field enhancement, these demonstrations have been limited to experiments that cannot be implemented into actual applications. This poses a significant bottleneck to the advancement of NFRHT research. Here, we describe devices bridging laboratory-scale measurements and potential NFRHT engineering applications in energy conversion and thermal management. We report a maximum NFRHT enhancement of ~ 28.5 over the blackbody limit with devices made of millimeter-sized doped silicon (Si) surfaces separated by vacuum gap spacings down to ~ 110 nm. The devices capitalize on micropillars, separating the high-temperature emitter and low-temperature receiver, manufactured within micrometer-deep pits. These micropillars, which are ~ 4.5 to 45 times longer than the nanosize vacuum spacing where radiation transfer takes place, minimize parasitic heat conduction without sacrificing device structural integrity. The robustness of our devices enables gap spacing visualization via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) prior to performing NFRHT measurements. Direct gap spacing characterization is critical for transitioning NFRHT research from laboratory-scale experiments to applications., Comment: 45 pages; 3 figures; 9 supplementary figures

The physics underlying spectral redshift of thermally generated surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) observed in near-field thermal spectroscopy is investigated. Numerically exact fluctuational electrodynamics simulations of the thermal near field emitted by a silicon carbide surface scattered in the far zone by an intrinsic silicon probe show that SPhP resonance redshift is a physical phenomenon. A maximum SPhP redshift of 19 cm-1 is predicted for a 200-nm-diameter hemispherical probing tip and a vacuum gap of 10 nm. Resonance redshift is mediated by electromagnetic gap modes excited in the vacuum gap separating the probe and the surface when the probing tip is much larger than the gap size. The impact of gap modes on the scattered field can be mitigated with a probing tip size approximately equal to or smaller than the vacuum gap. However, sharp probing tips induce important spectral broadening of the scattered field. It is also demonstrated that a dipole approximation with multiple reflections cannot be used for explaining the physics and predicting the amount of redshift in near-field thermal spectroscopy. This work shows that the scattered field in the far zone is a combination of the thermal near field emitted by the surface, and electromagnetic interactions between the probe and the surface. Spectroscopic analysis of near-field thermal emission thus requires a numerically exact fluctuational electrodynamics framework for modeling probe-surface interactions., Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures

The physical origin of spectral shift of thermally generated surface phonon-polariton (SPhP) resonance of a silicon carbide (SiC) bulk mediated by a non-resonant film is elucidated. The local density of electromagnetic states (LDOS) in a non-resonant intrinsic silicon (Si) film due to thermal emission by SiC, derived using fluctuational electrodynamics, exhibits a local maximum near SPhP resonant frequency in addition to a lower frequency resonance generated by gap modes emerging in the vacuum gap separating the SiC and Si layers. Multiple reflections within the vacuum gap also induce a LDOS drop around SPhP resonant frequency. As a result, depending on the film thickness to vacuum gap ratio and the location where the LDOS is calculated in the film, the low-frequency resonance can dominate the LDOS, such that SPhP resonance appears to be redshifted. A similar spectral behavior is observed on the monochromatic radiative heat flux absorbed by the Si film. It is shown that apparent spectral (red and blue) shift of SPhP resonance mediated by a non-resonant film is bounded by the transverse and longitudinal optical phonon frequencies of SiC. This work is of importance in applications involving dissimilar materials, such as thermophotovoltaics and thermal rectification, where gap modes may significantly disrupt flux resonance. Gap modes may also be at the origin of the resonance redshift systematically observed in near-field thermal spectroscopy., Comment: 31 pages, 9 figures

A novel photonic thermal diode concept operating in the near field and capitalizing on the temperature-dependence of coupled surface polariton modes in nanostructures is proposed. The diode concept utilizes terminals made of the same material supporting surface polariton modes in the infrared, but with dissimilar structures. The specific diode design analyzed in this Letter involves a thin film and a bulk, both made of 3C silicon carbide, separated by a subwavelength vacuum gap. High rectification efficiency is obtained by tuning the antisymmetric resonant modes of the thin film, resulting from surface phonon-polariton coupling, on- and off-resonance with the resonant mode of the bulk as a function of the temperature bias direction. Rectification efficiency is investigated by varying structural parameters, namely the vacuum gap size, the dielectric function of the substrate onto which the film is coated, and the film thickness to gap size ratio. Calculations based on fluctuational electrodynamics reveal that high rectification efficiencies in the 80% to 87% range can be maintained in a wide temperature band (~ 700 K to 1000 K). The rectification efficiency of the proposed diode concept can be potentially further enhanced by investigating more complex nanostructures such as gratings and multilayered media.

The importance of considering near-field effects on photon recycling and spontaneous emission in a thermophotovoltaic device is investigated. Fluctuational electrodynamics is used to calculate external luminescence from a photovoltaic cell as a function of emitter type, vacuum gap thickness between emitter and cell, and cell thickness. The observed changes in external luminescence suggest strong modifications of photon recycling caused by the presence of the emitter. Photon recycling for propagating modes is affected by reflection at the vacuum-emitter interface and is substantially decreased by the leakage towards the emitter through tunneling of frustrated modes. In addition, spontaneous emission by the cell can be strongly enhanced by the presence of an emitter supporting surface polariton modes. It follows that using a radiative recombination model with a spatially uniform radiative lifetime, even corrected by a photon recycling factor, is inappropriate. Applying the principles of detailed balance, and accounting for non-radiative recombination mechanisms, the impact of external luminescence enhancement in the near field on thermophotovoltaic performance is investigated. It is shown that unlike isolated cells, the external luminescence efficiency is not solely dependent on cell quality, but significantly increases as the vacuum gap thickness decreases below 400 nm for the case of an intrinsic silicon emitter. In turn, the open-circuit voltage and power density benefit from this enhanced external luminescence toward the emitter. This benefit is larger as cell quality, characterized by the contribution of non-radiative recombination, decreases., Comment: 44 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, 4 supplemental figures

A fluctuational electrodynamics-based formalism for calculating near-field radiative heat transfer between objects of arbitrary size and shape and an infinite surface is presented. The surface interactions are treated analytically via Sommerfeld's theory of electric dipole radiation above an infinite plane. The volume integral equation for the electric field is discretized using the thermal discrete dipole approximation (T-DDA). The framework is verified against exact results in the sphere-surface configuration, and is applied to analyze near-field radiative heat transfer between a complex-shaped probe and an infinite plane both made of silica. It is found that when the probe tip size is approximately equal to or smaller than the gap d separating the probe and the surface, coupled localized surface phonon (LSPh)-surface phonon-polariton (SPhP) mediated heat transfer occurs. In this regime, the net spectral heat rate exhibits four resonant modes due to LSPhs along the minor axis of the probe while the net total heat rate in the near field follows a d -0.3 power law. Conversely, when the probe tip size is much larger than the separation gap d, heat transfer is mediated by SPhPs resulting in two resonant modes in the net spectral heat rate corresponding to those of a single emitting silica surface while the net total heat rate approaches a d -2 power law. It is also demonstrated that a complex-shaped probe can be approximated by a prolate spheroidal electric dipole when the thermal wavelength is larger than the major axis of the spheroidal dipole and when the separation gap d is much larger than the radius of curvature of the dipole tip facing the surface., Comment: 40 pages, 11 figures

A general near-field thermal electromagnetic transport formalism that is independent of the size, shape and number of heat sources is derived. The formalism is based on fluctuational electrodynamics, where fluctuating currents due to thermal agitation are added to Maxwell's curl equations, and is thus valid for heat sources in local thermodynamic equilibrium. Using a volume integral formulation, it is shown that the proposed formalism is a generalization of the classical electromagnetic scattering framework in which thermal emission is implicitly assumed to be negligible. The near-field thermal electromagnetic transport formalism is afterwards applied to a problem involving three spheres with size comparable to the wavelength, where all multipolar interactions are taken into account. Using the thermal discrete dipole approximation, it is shown that depending on the dielectric function, the presence of a third sphere slightly affects the spatial distribution of power absorbed compared to the two-sphere case. A transient analysis shows that despite a non-uniform spatial distribution of power absorbed, the sphere temperature remains spatially uniform at any instant due to the fact that the thermal resistance by conduction is much smaller than the resistance by radiation. The formalism proposed in this paper is general, and could be used as a starting point for adapting solution methods employed in traditional electromagnetic scattering problems to near-field thermal electromagnetic transport., Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures

Optimal radiator thermal emission spectra maximizing thermophotovoltaic (TPV) conversion efficiency and output power density are determined when temperature effects in the cell are considered. To do this, a framework is designed in which a TPV model that accounts for radiative, electrical and thermal losses is coupled with a genetic algorithm. The TPV device under study involves a spectrally selective radiator at a temperature of 2000 K, a gallium antimonide cell, and a cell thermal management system characterized by a fluid temperature and a heat transfer coefficient of 293 K and 600 Wm-2K-1. It is shown that a maximum conversion efficiency of 38.8% is achievable with an emission spectrum that has emissivity of unity between 0.719 eV and 0.763 eV and zero elsewhere. This optimal spectrum is less than half of the width of those when thermal losses are neglected. A maximum output power density of 41708 Wm-2 is achievable with a spectrum having emissivity values of unity between 0.684 eV and 1.082 eV and zero elsewhere when thermal losses are accounted for. These emission spectra are shown to greatly outperform blackbody and tungsten radiators, and could be obtained using artificial structures such as metamaterials or photonic crystals., Comment: 33 pages, 8 figures

The thermal discrete dipole approximation (T-DDA) is a numerical approach for modeling near-field radiative heat transfer in complex three-dimensional geometries. In this work, the convergence of the T-DDA is investigated by comparison against the exact results for two spheres separated by a vacuum gap. The error associated with the T-DDA is reported for various sphere sizes, refractive indices and vacuum gap thicknesses. The results reveal that for a fixed number of subvolumes, the accuracy of the T-DDA degrades as the refractive index and the sphere diameter to gap ratio increase. A converging trend is observed as the number of subvolumes increases. The large computational requirements associated with increasing the number of subvolumes, and the shape error induced by large sphere diameter to gap ratios, are mitigated by using a nonuniform discretization scheme. Nonuniform discretization is shown to significantly accelerate the convergence of the T-DDA, and is thus recommended for near-field thermal radiation simulations. Errors less than 5% are obtained in 74% of the cases studied by using up to 82712 subvolumes. Additionally, the convergence analysis demonstrates that the T-DDA is very accurate when dealing with surface polariton resonant modes dominating radiative heat transfer in the near field., Comment: 46 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables

The impacts of radiative, electrical and thermal losses on the power output enhancement of nanoscale-gap thermophotovoltaic (nano-TPV) power generators consisting of a gallium antimonide cell paired with a broadband tungsten and a radiatively-optimized Drude radiator are analyzed. Results reveal that surface mode mediated nano-TPV power generation with the Drude radiator outperforms the tungsten emitter, dominated by frustrated modes, only for a vacuum gap thickness of 10 nm and if both electrical and thermal losses are neglected. The key limiting factors for the Drude and tungsten-based devices are respectively the recombination of electron-hole pairs at the cell surface and thermalization of radiation with energy larger than the absorption bandgap. In a nano-TPV power generator cooled by convection with a fluid at 293 K and a heat transfer coefficient of 10^4 Wm^-2K^-1, power output enhancements of 4.69 and 1.89 are obtained for the tungsten and Drude radiators, respectively, when a realistic vacuum gap thickness of 100 nm is considered. A design guideline is also proposed where a high energy cutoff above which radiation has a net negative effect on nano-TPV power output is determined. This work demonstrates that design and optimization of nano-TPV devices must account for radiative, electrical and thermal losses.

A novel numerical method called the Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximation (T-DDA) is proposed for modeling near-field radiative heat transfer in three-dimensional arbitrary geometries. The T-DDA is conceptually similar to the Discrete Dipole Approximation, except that the incident field originates from thermal oscillations of dipoles. The T-DDA is described in details in the paper, and the method is tested against exact results of radiative conductance between two spheres separated by a sub-wavelength vacuum gap. For all cases considered, the results calculated from the T-DDA are in good agreement with those from the analytical solution. When considering frequency-independent dielectric functions, it is observed that the number of sub-volumes required for convergence increases as the sphere permittivity increases. Additionally, simulations performed for two silica spheres of 0.5 micrometer-diameter show that the resonant modes are predicted accurately via the T-DDA. For separation gaps of 0.5 micrometer and 0.2 micrometer, the relative differences between the T-DDA and the exact results are 0.35% and 6.4%, respectively, when 552 sub-volumes are used to discretize a sphere. Finally, simulations are performed for two cubes of silica separated by a sub-wavelength gap. The results revealed that faster convergence is obtained when considering cubical objects rather than curved geometries. This work suggests that the T-DDA is a robust numerical approach that can be employed for solving a wide variety of near-field thermal radiation problems in three-dimensional geometries.