arXiv · 1902.00252
Temperature-independent thermal radiation
Abstract
Thermal emission is the process by which all objects at non-zero temperatures emit light, and is well-described by the classic Planck, Kirchhoff, and Stefan-Boltzmann laws. For most solids, the thermally emitted power increases monotonically with temperature in a one-to-one relationship that enables applications such as infrared imaging and non-contact thermometry. Here, we demonstrate ultrathin thermal emitters that violate this one-to-one relationship via the use of samarium nickel oxide (SmNiO3), a strongly correlated quantum material that undergoes a fully reversible, temperature-driven solid-state phase transition. The smooth and hysteresis-free nature of this unique insulator-to-metal (IMT) phase transition allows us to engineer the temperature dependence of emissivity to precisely cancel out the intrinsic blackbody profile described by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, for both heating and cooling. Our design results in temperature-independent thermally emitted power within the long-wave atmospheric transparency window (wavelengths of 8 - 14 um), across a broad temperature range of ~30 {\deg}C, centered around ~120 {\deg}C. The ability to decouple temperature and thermal emission opens a new gateway for controlling the visibility of objects to infrared cameras and, more broadly, new opportunities for quantum materials in controlling heat transfer.
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Alireza Shahsafi, Patrick Roney, You Zhou, Zhen Zhang, Yuzhe Xiao, Chenghao Wan, Raymond Wambold, Jad Salman, Zhaoning Yu, Jiarui Li, Jerzy T. Sadowski, Riccardo Comin, Shriram Ramanathan, Mikhail A. Kats. 2019-02-01. Temperature-independent thermal radiation. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1911244116
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