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An In-situ and Direct Confirmation of Super-Planckian Thermal Radiation Emitted From a Metallic Photonic-Crystal at Optical Wavelengths

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [6]
  1. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; DOE/OSTI
  2. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; National Chiao Tung Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Photonics
  3. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics
  4. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
  5. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States). CINT
  6. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering

Planck’s law predicts the distribution of radiation energy, color and intensity, emitted from a hot object at thermal equilibrium. The Law also sets the upper limit of radiation intensity, the blackbody limit. Recent experiments reveal that micro-structured tungsten can exhibit significant deviation from the blackbody spectrum. However, whether thermal radiation with weak non-equilibrium pumping can exceed the blackbody limit in the far field remains un-answered experimentally. Here, we compare thermal radiation from a micro-cavity/tungsten photonic crystal (W-PC) and a blackbody, which are both measured from the same sample and also in-situ. We show that thermal radiation can exceed the blackbody limit by >8 times at λ=1.7 μm resonant wavelength in the far-field. Our observation is consistent with a recent calculation by Wang and John performed for a 2D W-PC filament. This finding is attributed to non-equilibrium excitation of localized surface plasmon resonances coupled to nonlinear oscillators and the propagation of the electromagnetic waves through non-linear Bloch waves of the W-PC structure. This discovery could help create super-intense narrow band thermal light sources and even an infrared emitter with a laser-like input-output characteristic.

Research Organization:
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States); Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-06ER46347; AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1628993
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1770356
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 10; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Erratum for the paper "Three-dimensional photonic-crystal emission through thermal excitation."
Journal Article · Fri Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2004 · Proposed for publication in Optics Letters. · OSTI ID:944379