29 research outputs found
Force-induced acoustic phonon transport across single-digit nanometre vacuum gaps
Heat transfer between bodies separated by nanoscale vacuum gap distances has
been extensively studied for potential applications in thermal management,
energy conversion and data storage. For vacuum gap distances down to 20 nm,
state-of-the-art experiments demonstrated that heat transport is mediated by
near-field thermal radiation, which can exceed Planck's blackbody limit due to
the tunneling of evanescent electromagnetic waves. However, at sub-10-nm vacuum
gap distances, current measurements are in disagreement on the mechanisms
driving thermal transport. While it has been hypothesized that acoustic phonon
transport across single-digit nanometre vacuum gaps (or acoustic phonon
tunneling) can dominate heat transfer, the underlying physics of this
phenomenon and its experimental demonstration are still unexplored. Here, we
use a custom-built high-vacuum shear force microscope (HV-SFM) to measure heat
transfer between a silicon (Si) tip and a feedback-controlled platinum (Pt)
nanoheater in the near-contact, asperity-contact, and bulk-contact regimes. We
demonstrate that in the near-contact regime (i.e., single-digit nanometre or
smaller vacuum gaps before making asperity contact), heat transfer between Si
and Pt surfaces is dominated by force-induced acoustic phonon transport that
exceeds near-field thermal radiation predictions by up to three orders of
magnitude. The measured thermal conductance shows a gap dependence of
in the near-contact regime, which is consistent with acoustic
phonon transport modelling based on the atomistic Green's function (AGF)
framework. Our work suggests the possibility of engineering heat transfer
across single-digit nanometre vacuum gaps with external force stimuli, which
can make transformative impacts to the development of emerging thermal
management technologies.Comment: 9 pages with 4 figures (Main text), 13 pages with 7 figures
(Methods), and 13 pages with 6 figures and 1 table (Supplementary
Information
Revisiting the Figure of Merit of Concentrated Solar Power Receivers
The figure of merit (FOM) is a widely used metric to characterize the
performance of concentrated solar power (CSP) receivers by comparing the amount
of solar thermal energy retained by the receiver to the incident concentrated
solar radiation. However, the FOM is a strong function of the concentration
factor and receiver temperature, thus direct comparison of FOM values measured
under disparate operating conditions is inappropriate. To remedy this problem,
the present study proposes a new metric called the receiver effectiveness
calculated by normalizing the actual FOM with its theoretical maximum. The
receiver effectiveness can be employed for comparing receiver performances
regardless of their operating conditions, and can be treated as more-like the
second law efficiency of thermodynamics. In addition, a theoretical limit of
the CSP plant efficiency is also examined by combining the maximum FOM and the
Carnot efficiency for different concentration factors and receiver
temperatures. The calculated maximum CSP plant efficiency clearly indicate that
optimizing FOM does not always lead to a better CSP plant performance. Along
with the FOM, the proposed receiver effectiveness and maximum CSP system
efficiency should be considered as complementary metrics to evaluate the
performance of the CSP system
Temperature measurements of heated microcantilevers using scanning thermoreflectance microscopy
We report the development of scanning thermoreflectance thermometry and its application for steady and dynamic temperature measurement of a heated microcantilever. The local thermoreflectance signal of the heated microcantilever was calibrated to temperature while the cantilever was under steady and periodic heating operation. The temperature resolution of our approach is 0.6 K, and the spatial resolution is 2 μm, which are comparable to micro-Raman thermometry. However, the temporal resolution of our approach is about 10 μsec, which is significantly faster than micro-Raman thermometry. When the heated microcantilever is periodically heated with frequency up to 100 kHz, we can measure both the in-phase and out-of-phase components of the temperature oscillation. For increasing heating frequency, the measured cantilever AC temperature distribution tends to be confined in the vicinity of the heater region and becomes increasingly out of phase with the driving signal. These results compare well with finite element simulations
Thermal Characterization of Heated Microcantilevers and a Study on Near-Field Radiation
Recently, remarkable advances have been made in the understanding of micro/nanoscale energy transport, opening new opportunities in various areas such as thermal management, data storage, and energy conversion. This dissertation focuses on thermally-sensed nanotopography using a heated silicon microcantilever and near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion system.
A heated microcantilever is a functionalized atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilever that has a small resistive heater integrated at the free end. Besides its capability of increasing the heater temperature over 1,000 K, the resistance of a heated cantilever is a very sensitive function of temperature, suggesting that the heated cantilever can be used as a highly sensitive thermal metrology tool. The first part of the dissertation discusses the thermal characterization of the heated microcantilever for its usage as a thermal sensor in various conditions. Particularly, the use of heated cantilevers for tapping-mode topography imaging will be presented, along with the recent experimental results on the thermal interaction between the cantilever and substrate.
In the second part of the dissertation, the so-called near-field TPV device is introduced. This new type of energy conversion system utilizes the significant enhancement of radiative energy transport due to photon tunneling and surface polaritons. Investigation of surface and bulk polaritons in a multilayered structure reveals that radiative properties are significantly affected by polariton excitations. The dissertation then addresses the rigorous performance analysis of the near-field TPV system and a novel design of a near-field TPV device.Ph.D.Committee Co-Chair: King, William P.; Committee Co-Chair: Zhang, Zhuomin; Committee Member: Allen, Mark G.; Committee Member: Graham, Samuel; Committee Member: Joshi, Yogendra; Committee Member: Marchenkov, Alexe
Finite element analysis of transient ballistic-diffusive phonon heat transport in two-dimensional domains
While sub-continuum heat conduction becomes more important as the size of micro/nanodevices keeps shrinking under the mean free path of heat carriers, its computation still remains challenging to the general engineering community due to the lack of easily accessible numerical simulation tools. To address this challenge, this article reports the finite element analysis (FEA) of transient ballistic-diffusive phonon heat transport in a two-dimensional domain using a commercial package (COMSOL Multiphysics). The Boltzmann transport equation under the gray relaxation-time approximation was numerically solved by discretizing the angular domain with the discrete ordinate method (DOM) and the spatial domain with the FEA. The DOM-FEA method was validated by comparing the results with different benchmark studies, such as the equation of phonon radiative transfer, the ballistic-diffusive equation, and the finite difference method of the phonon Boltzmann transport equation. The calculation of phonon heat transport for a 2-D square slab reveals that heat conduction becomes more ballistic with temperature jumps at boundaries as Knudsen number (Kn) increases. The ballistic nature also significantly affects transient thermal behaviors at high Kn numbers. The obtained results clearly demonstrate the capability of the DOM-FEA as a promising engineering tool for calculating sub-continuum phonon heat transport