Near-Field Heat Transfer in a Scanning Thermal Microscope

Author(s): Achim Kittel, Wolfgang Mueller-Hirsch, Juergen Parisi, Svend-Age Biehs, Daniel Reddig, Martin Holthaus
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Article: Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 224301 (2005) , The American Physical Society
Keywords: Near-Field Heat Transfer, Scanning Thermal Microscope
PACS: 05.40.-a, 03.50.De, 44.40.+a, 78.20.Ci
Abstract:: We present measurements of the near-field heat transfer between the tip of a thermal profiler and planar material surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. For tip-sample distances below 10-8 m, our results differ markedly from the prediction of fluctuating electrodynamics. We argue that these differences are due to the existence of a material-dependent small length scale below which the macroscopic description of the dielectric properties fails, and discuss a heuristic model which yields fair agreement with the available data. These results are of importance for the quantitative interpretation of signals obtained by scanning thermal microscopes capable of detecting local temperature variations on surfaces.
URL: http://www.physik.uni-oldenburg.de/condmat/Biehs/pubs/prl2005.pdf (application/pdf)