An In-situ and Direct Confirmation of Super-Planckian Thermal Radiation Emitted From a Metallic Photonic-Crystal at Optical Wavelengths
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; DOE/OSTI
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy; National Chiao Tung Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Photonics
- Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada). Dept. of Physics
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States). Dept. of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States). CINT
- 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