Physics Colloquium

Join us for “Engineering and Measurement of Thermal Radiation,” presented by Mikhail Kats, Ph.D., department of electrical computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thermal emission (thermal radiation) is the phenomenon responsible for most of the light in the universe. Though understanding of thermal emission dates back more than a century, recent advances have encouraged the reexamination of this phenomenon and its applications.

During the talk, Kats will describe advances and outline future work in the measurement and manipulation of thermal emission. Kats will discuss their efforts to improve thermal-emission metrology, especially for low-temperature thermal emitters, emitters with temperature-dependent emissivity, and emitters out of equilibrium. Such improvements can enable such techniques as depth thermography, in which measurements of thermal emission yield temperature information below the surface of objects. Kats will describe the use of phase-transition materials, including vanadium dioxide and rare-earth nickelates, to demonstrate new phenomena, including negative- and zero-differential thermal emittance, radiative thermal runaway, and thermo-dichroism. He will also discuss the recent demonstration of nanosecond-scale modulation of emissivity and thermal-emission pulses down to picosecond scales. The talk will include discussion of exciting opportunities of thermal-emission engineering for infrared camouflage and thermoregulation.