Radiative Thermalisation at the Nanoscale

Abstract

Radiative heat transfer at the nanometre scale can be several orders of magnitude higher than predicted by the Stefan-Boltzman law. When the distance between objects is small compared to the thermal wavelength, evanescent waves contribute significantly to the heat transfer, so that the blackbody limit can be exceeded. This is especially important when considering the thermalisation between two objects that are in close proximity and exchange heat by thermal radiation. In this project, radiative thermalisation is investigated theoretically and numerically in the particular case of two bodies and a thermal bath. The stationary temperature of one of the bodies is studied as a function of the separation distance between the objects and it is shown that the thermalisation induces a saturation of the heat flow