Date of Award

Fall 12-15-2023

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Advisor

Sheila Edalatpour

Second Committee Member

Bashir Khoda

Third Committee Member

Olivier Putzeys

Abstract

Radiative heat transfer between two media separated by a gap smaller than the wavelength of thermal radiation (10 μm at room temperature) is referred to as near-field RHT. Near-field RHT exceeds the RHT between two blackbodies which is the maximum limit for RHT in the far-field regime (i.e., when the separation gap is much larger than the thermal wavelength). Due to this enhanced heat transfer, near-field RHT has found promising applications, for power enhancement of thermophotovoltaic devices, thermal rectification, localized cooling, and photonic cooling to name only a few. Graphene is an ideal material for near-field RHT applications as it is one of the materials with the largest heat flux and it also can emit surface plasmon polaritons resulting a resonantly enhancement of heat flux. In this thesis, we implement an experimental setup for measuring far-field and near-field RHT between two macroscopic planar media separated by a nanoscale vacuum gap. The validity of the setup is demonstrated by comparing the measured heat flux data with theoretical predictions. The implemented setup is then used for demonstrating that the near-field RHT between two dissimilar dielectric media can be enhanced by depositing a layer of graphene on one of the media. The outcome of this study is an experimental setup which can be used for measuring the far-field and near-field RHT between arbitrary materials as well as experimental demonstration of the graphene potential for near-field RHT applications.

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