Geometric Effects in Radiative Heat Transfer

Passcode: RHT

The blackbody limit of radiative heat transfer between two bodies set by Planck’s law can be significantly exceeded for systems in which the distance between bodies and/or one or more dimensions of the bodies is less than the thermal wavelength. Super-Planckian radiative heat transfer may be critical to an understanding of intra-chip heat flow in computer cooling and advancements in renewable energy storage and thermal switching. Existing research in this field is promising, but experimental investigations of the impact of geometric effects are limited. In this thesis, experimental results will be discussed for illuminating the impacts on radiative heat transfer when both bodies are highly-curved and for strongly limiting size along one dimension.

Chair: Professor Pramod Sangi-Reddy