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Title: Study of radiative heat transfer in Ångström- and nanometre-sized gaps

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14479· OSTI ID:1366540
 [1];  [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [2];  [1];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
  2. Univ. Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). Dept. de Fisica Teorica de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC)
  3. Univ. Autonoma de Madrid (Spain). Dept. de Fisica Teorica de la Materia Condensada and Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC); Donostia International Physics Center, San Sebastian (Spain)
  4. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering

Radiative heat transfer in Ångström- and nanometre-sized gaps is of great interest because of both its technological importance and open questions regarding the physics of energy transfer in this regime. Here in this paper we report studies of radiative heat transfer in few Å to 5nm gap sizes, performed under ultrahigh vacuum conditions between a Au-coated probe featuring embedded nanoscale thermocouples and a heated planar Au substrate that were both subjected to various surface-cleaning procedures. By drawing on the apparent tunnelling barrier height as a signature of cleanliness, we found that upon systematically cleaning via a plasma or locally pushing the tip into the substrate by a few nanometres, the observed radiative conductances decreased from unexpectedly large values to extremely small ones—below the detection limit of our probe—as expected from our computational results. Our results show that it is possible to avoid the confounding effects of surface contamination and systematically study thermal radiation in Ångström- and nanometre-sized gaps.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); European Research Council (ERC); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); Comunidad de Madrid
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004871; N00014-16-1-2672; FIS2014-53488-P; S2013/MIT-2740
OSTI ID:
1366540
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 8; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 112 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Quantized thermal transport in single-atom junctions journal February 2017
Near-Field Thermal Radiation between Nanostructures of Natural Anisotropic Material journal September 2018
Statistical analysis of electronic and phononic transport simulations of metallic atomic contacts journal September 2019
Photonic thermal conduction by infrared plasmonic resonators in semiconductor nanowires journal April 2019
Optomechanical heat transfer between molecules in a nanoplasmonic cavity journal July 2019
Near-Field Thermal Radiation of Nanopatterned Black Phosphorene Mediated by Topological Transitions of Phosphorene Plasmons journal February 2019
Realizing the nanoscale quantitative thermal mapping of scanning thermal microscopy by resilient tip–surface contact resistance models journal January 2018
Thermal conductance of single-molecule junctions journal July 2019
Perspective: Thermal and thermoelectric transport in molecular junctions journal March 2017
Statistical analysis of electronic and phononic transport simulations of metallic atomic contacts text January 2019
Energy Transport by Radiation in Hyperbolic Material Comparable to Conduction journal December 2019
Recent advances in hybrid measurement methods based on atomic force microscopy and surface sensitive measurement techniques journal January 2017
A Review on Principles and Applications of Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) journal September 2019
On anomalously large nano-scale heat transfer between metals journal January 2019
Photonic thermal conduction by infrared plasmonic resonators in semiconductor nanowires text January 2019
Ultranarrow-Band Wavelength-Selective Thermal Emission with Aperiodic Multilayered Metamaterials Designed by Bayesian Optimization journal January 2019