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Scattering approach to near-field radiative heat transfer

Matthias Hübler1, Denis M. Basko2, and Wolfgang Belzig1

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Phys. Rev. B 112, 165428 – Published 24 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xmmg-dv2d

Abstract

We formulate the problem of near-field radiative heat transfer as an effective quantum scattering theory for excitations of the matter. Built from the same ingredients as the semiclassical fluctuational electrodynamics, the standard tool to handle this problem, our construction makes manifest its relation to the Landauer-Büttiker scattering framework, which appears only implicitly in the fluctuational electrodynamics. We show how to construct the scattering matrix for the matter excitations and give a general expression for the energy current in terms of this scattering matrix. We show that the energy current has an important nondissipative contribution that can dominate the finite-frequency noise while being absent in the average current. Our construction provides a unified description of near-field radiative heat transfer in diverse physical systems.

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Phys. Rev. B 112, 165428– Published 24 October, 2025
  • Received 20 November 2024
  • Revised 4 July 2025
  • Accepted 6 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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