Welcome to the McGill Radiative Transfer Lab (RTL)

Mission

Research at the RTL primarily focuses on near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT), which can be defined as the discipline concerned with exploiting and harvesting the energy associated with evanescent electromagnetic waves. All thermal sources emit evanescent waves, but their energy can only be harvested in the near field as they decay exponentially over a distance of approximately a wavelength normal to a surface. For typical thermal radiation temperatures, this decay length is on the order of a few micrometers. NFRHT can exceed the far-field blackbody limit owing to tunneling of evanescent waves. In addition, by capitalizing on resonant evanescent waves such as surface phonon-polaritons, it is possible to spectrally control radiative transfer in an unprecedent manner. NFRHT research has been motivated by potential performance enhancement in energy conversion and thermal management technologies, such as thermophotovoltaic power generation and localized radiative cooling. However, there are critical knowledge gaps preventing the application of NFRHT to engineering systems. Our primary mission at the RTL is to bridge NFRHT concepts and engineering applications by developing and implementing novel devices and modeling tools. 

Funding