Near-Field Radiative Heat Transfer Between Materials With Dielectric Coatings

Radiative heat transfer between materials with dielectric coatings is numerically studied based on the fluctuational electrodynamics and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The results show that whereas a dielectric coating (SiC) enhances the far-field radiative heat transfer between two bulk metals, it will suppress the radiative heat transfer in the near-field and the suppression is only for the s-wave contribution. The total radiative heat flux continuously decreases as the coating thickness increases up to 1 μm. A further increase in the coating thickness will cause the total radiative heat flux to increase slightly before it saturates. In addition, a much smaller coating thickness than the coating’s skin depth is enough to significantly change the total radiative heat flux in the near-field region. On the contrary, a thin dielectric coating that supports surface polaritons can greatly enhance the radiative heat transfer between a metal and a dielectric in the case that the coating is on the metal. The large enhancement is due to surface polaritons excited on the two surfaces of the air gap boundaries.