Enhancing far-field thermal emission with thermal extraction

The control of thermal radiation is of great current importance for applications such as energy conversions and radiative cooling. Here we show theoretically that the thermal emission of a finite-size blackbody emitter can be enhanced in a thermal extraction scheme, where one places the emitter in o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2013, Vol.4 (1), p.1730-1730, Article 1730
Main Authors: Yu, Zongfu, Sergeant, Nicholas P., Skauli, Torbjørn, Zhang, Gang, Wang, Hailiang, Fan, Shanhui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1075
639/766/400
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:The control of thermal radiation is of great current importance for applications such as energy conversions and radiative cooling. Here we show theoretically that the thermal emission of a finite-size blackbody emitter can be enhanced in a thermal extraction scheme, where one places the emitter in optical contact with an extraction device consisting of a transparent object, as long as both the emitter and the extraction device have an internal density of state higher than vacuum, and the extraction device has an area larger than the emitter and moreover has a geometry that enables light extraction. As an experimental demonstration of the thermal extraction scheme, we observe a four-fold enhancement of the far-field thermal emission of a carbon-black emitter having an emissivity of 0.85. The control of thermal radiation is important for applications such as energy conversion and radiative cooling. Here Fan et al . demonstrate a thermal extraction scheme that can enhance the emission of a finite-sized blackbody-like emitter.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms2765