engineers at arizona state university, working with the support of a young investigator program research grant from the u.s. air force office of scientific research, are seeking to improve thermal radiation and its transport by designing and constructing custom electromagnetic materials using nanowires.

assistant professor liping wang (right) and hassan alshehri, a mechanical engineering doctoral student, research 
manufactured materialsas part of wang's nano-engineered thermal radiation group. (nora skrodenis/asu)

these materials could provide significant boosts to thermal management, energy harvesting, imaging, and sensing, which all lead to more efficient incorporation of renewable resources in the energy sector.

according to an article on the asu website, waste heat reduces the efficiency of thermophotovoltaic systems, so the engineers are working to design better emitters and receivers that can selectively control thermal radiation and enhance radiative transport.

assistant professor liping wang has engineered nanowire-based metamaterials that have electromagnetic properties not seen in naturally occurring materials or composites. the engineered materials “respond to both electrical and magnetic field at optical frequencies.” this allows for “improved control of light propagation, absorption and emission” or spectral selectivity.

wang is also studying the thermal transfer through the nanometer-scale vacuum gaps between metamaterials. he explained, “we aim to engineer these novel materials for developing high-efficiency renewable energy sources, recuperating waste heat, facilitating thermal managements and mitigating climate change.”

the researchers hope that this work could reduce fuel consumption and emission of greenhouse gases by as much as 30 percent thanks to better recycling of waste heat.