By Josh Perry, Editor
[email protected]

Scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon, South Korea developed new technology that measured and controlled near-field thermal radiation between metallo-dielectric (MD) multilayer structures.

Professor Seung Seob Lee, Professor Bong Jae Lee, Ph. D., Mikyung Lim and Ph. D. candidate Jaeman Song. (KAIST)

According to a report from KAIST, “Their thermal radiation control technology can be applied to next-generation semiconductor packaging, thermophotovoltaic cells and thermal management systems. It also has the potential to be applied to a sustainable energy source for IoT sensors.”

In order to measure the near-field radiation between MD layers at the nanoscale, researchers created a custom MEMS-device-integrated platform with three-axis nanopositioner.

“By measuring the near-field thermal radiation with a varying number of unit cells and the fill factor of the multilayer nanostructures, the team demonstrated that the surface plasmon polariton coupling enhances near-field thermal radiation greatly, and allows spectral control over the heat transfer,” the report continued.

Demonstrating control at the nanoscale gives researchers belief that it can be applied in real-world situations.

The research was published this past October in Nature Communications. The abstract stated:

“Several experiments have shown a huge enhancement in thermal radiation over the blackbody limit when two objects are separated by nanoscale gaps. Although those measurements only demonstrated enhanced radiation between homogeneous materials, theoretical studies now focus on controlling the near-field radiation by tuning surface polaritons supported in nanomaterials.

“Here, we experimentally demonstrate near-field thermal radiation between metallo-dielectric multilayers at nanoscale gaps. Significant enhancement in heat transfer is achieved due to the coupling of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported at multiple metal-dielectric interfaces. This enables the metallo-dielectric multilayers at a 160-nm vacuum gap to have the same heat transfer rate as that between semi-infinite metal surfaces separated by only 75 nm.

“We also demonstrate that near-field thermal radiation can be readily tuned by modifying the resonance condition of coupled SPPs. This study will provide a new direction for exploiting surface-polariton-mediated near-field thermal radiation between planar structures.”