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Theory of heat transfer by evanescent electromagnetic waves

1994; American Physical Society; Volume: 50; Issue: 24 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1103/physrevb.50.18517

1095-3795

J Loomis, Humphrey J. Maris,

Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics

We present a macroscopic, phenomenological theory for the heat flow between two material half-spaces of differing temperatures whose surfaces are separated by a gap of width l. Our calculation parallels Liftshitz's calculation of the van der Waals force between two dielectric slabs. For l sufficiently small, the heat flow is enhanced by a contribution from evanescent waves, and in the limit of a very small gap varies as ${\mathit{l}}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}2}$.