Thermal Radiation Through a Nano Aperture

Far-field thermal radiation through a nano aperture is calculated in this paper. Results show that for aperture size ≪ dominant wavelength of thermally excited photons, heat flux deviates significantly from the well known Planck blackbody expression of σT4 , where σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature. The heat flux through a nano-hole is proportional to T8 and a4 , where a is the radius of the hole. Heat flux is proportional to T8 and a4 due to diffraction effects. Potential applications of radiation heat transfer through nano apertures are also discussed in the paper.