Untersuchung thermischer Nahfelder mit einem Raster-Wärmemikroskop

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Achim Kittel
• Subject Area: Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: from 2008 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 53838486

• Final Report Year: 2011

Final Report Abstract

In the course of this joint experimental and theoretical project quite substantial progress could be achieved. We have developed an advanced thermosensor for use in our near-field thermal microscope (NSThM), and utilized this for nanoscale thermal imaging of structured surfaces. A major part of the theoretical activity was devoted to reconstructing the thermoimages from topographical data. We are now in a position where we can deposit welldefined nanoparticles on atomically flat surfaces, and investigate their specific near-field heat signature both experimentally and theoretically. Our setup is unique in reaching the extreme near-field regime, in which the temperatures of probe and sample differ by several 100 K, while their spacing can be less than 1 nm. This seems to prompt further phenomena which are still incompletely understood. Theoretical questions related to this project have also led to an intense collaboration with two mathematicians. Thus, this project has constituted a forum for a quite large group of scientists involved in the emerging field of thermal near-field physics. We are certain that this coherent research effort will trigger still further developments in the future.

Publications

• Near-field radiative heat transfer for structured surfaces. Phys. Rev. B 78, 085414 (2008)
  Svend-Age Biehs, Oliver Huth, and Felix Rüting
  
• Near-field thermal imaging of nano-structured surfaces. Appl. Phys. Lett. 93, 193109 (2008)
  Achim Kittel, Uli F. Wischnath, Joachim Welker, Oliver Huth, Felix Rüting, and Svend-Age Biehs
  
• The Near-Field Scanning Thermal Microscope. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79, 073708 (2008)
  Uli F. Wischnath, Joachim Welker, Marco Munzel, and Achim Kittel
  
• Nanophotonics: Probing near-field thermal radiation. Nature Photonics 3 (news & views), 492 (2009)
  Achim Kittel
  
• Perturbation theory for plasmonic eigenvalues. Phys. Rev. B 80, 245405 (2009)
  Daniel Grieser, Hannes Uecker, Svend-Age Biehs, Oliver Huth, Felix Rüting, and Martin Holthaus
  
• Surface plasmon resonances of an arbitrarily shaped nanoparticle: high-frequency asymptotics via pseudo-differential operators. J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 42, 135204 (2009)
  Daniel Grieser and Felix Ruting
  
• Das Nahfeld-Rasterwarmemikroskop. Phys. Unserer Zeit 42, 10 (2011)
  Achim Kittel, David Hellmann, Ludwig Worbes und Martin Holthaus
  
• Second-order calculation of the local density of states above a nanostructured surface. Phys. Rev. B 82, 115443 (2010)
  Felix Rüting, Svend-Age Biehs, Oliver Huth, and Martin Holthaus
  
• Shape-dependence of near-field heat transfer between a spheroidal nanoparticle and a flat surface. Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 50, 10603 (2010)
  Oliver Huth, Felix Rüting, Svend-Age Biehs, and Martin Holthaus
  
• Spheroidal nanoparticles as thermal near-field sensors. J. Appl. Phys. 108, 014312 (2010)
  Svend-Age Biehs, Oliver Huth, Felix Rüting, and Martin Holthaus
  
• Statistics for Surface Modes of Nanoparticles with Shape Fluctuations. Commun. in Comput. Phys. 8, 1224 (2010)
  Felix Rüting and Hannes Uecker