Open Access

ARTICLE

HEAT FLOW IN THIN FILMS VIA SURFACE PHONON-POLARITONS

Dye-Zone A. Chen, Gang Chen^*

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

* Corresponding Author:

Frontiers in Heat and Mass Transfer 2010, 1(2), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.5098/hmt.v1.2.3005

Abstract

We present a calculation of the thermally generated electromagnetic flux propagating along the in-plane direction of a polar, thin film. The approach is based on fluctuational electrodynamics and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We find that for silicon carbide films between 5 nm and 100 nm thick, the thinner films transport more in-plane flux due to the long propagation length of the anti-symmetric surface phonon-polariton mode. Comparison of results obtained from the fluctuation-dissipation approach and the kinetic theory approach shows favorable agreement.

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Keywords

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