OVERVIEW OF MICRO/NANOSCALE THERMAL RADIATION

In recent years, rapid progress has been made in nanoscale radiative heat transfer and in tailoring thermal radiative properties using novel materials and structures, resulting in greatiy enhanced theoretical understanding along with the development of powerful computational methodology and advanced experimental metrology. Due to the multidisciplinary nature and broad applications of this area, some good review articles have been written over the years, but they are spread over various journals and serials. This volume assembles comprehensive review articles from leading researchers on the latest advances of this exciting Geld. Each chapter covers a focused topic with introductory materials, as well as retrospective and prospective views. The materials cover the measurements and computational simulations of near-field radiative heat transfer; control of thermal radiation with various excitations, nanophotonics, and metamaterials/metasurfaces; understanding dependent scattering effects in discrete disordered media; and novel energy conversion devices enabled by controlling the chemical potential of photons. The first chapter provides a general overview, briefly summarizes the following chapters, and outlines some significant questions and challenges.