Journal
NATURE NANOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 11, Issue 6, Pages 515-+Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2016.20
Keywords
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Funding
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency [FA8650-14-1-7406]
- National Science Foundation (NSF) Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers programme [DMR-1120296]
- NSF [ECCS-0335765]
- Fonds de recherche du Quebec-Nature et Technologies (FRQNT)
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
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Thermal radiation between parallel objects separated by deep subwavelength distances and subject to large thermal gradients (>100 K) can reach very high magnitudes, while being concentrated on a narrow frequency distribution. These unique characteristics could enable breakthrough technologies for thermal transport control(1-3) and electricity generation(4-8) (for example, by radiating heat exactly at the bandgap frequency of a photovoltaic cell). However, thermal transport in this regime has never been achieved experimentally due to the difficulty of maintaining large thermal gradients over nanometre-scale distances while avoiding other heat transfer mechanisms, namely conduction. Here, we show near-field radiative heat transfer between parallel SiC nanobeams in the deep subwavelength regime. The distance between the beams is controlled by a high-precision micro-electromechanical system (MEMS). We exploit the mechanical stability of nanobeams under high tensile stress to minimize thermal buckling effects, therefore keeping control of the nanometre-scale separation even at large thermal gradients. We achieve an enhancement of heat transfer of almost two orders of magnitude with respect to the far-field limit (corresponding to a 42 nm separation) and show that we can maintain a temperature gradient of 260 K between the cold and hot surfaces at similar to 100 nm distance.
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