TY  - JOUR
A1  - Greffet, Jean-Jacques
A1  - Carminati, Rémi
A1  - Joulain, Karl
A1  - Mulet, J. P.
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
T1  - Coherence properties of thermal near fields : implications for nanometer-scale radiative transfer
N2  - With the recent development of local (optical and thermal) probe microscopy and the advent of nanotechnology, it seems necessary to revisit the old subject of coherence properies of thermal sources of light. Concerning temporal coherence, we show that thermal sources may produce quasi-monochromatic near fields. In light of this result, the possibility of perfoming near-field solid-state spectroscopy and of designing near-field infrared sources is discussed. The problem of radiative transfer between two thermal sources held at subwavelength distance is studied. The radiative flux may be enhanced by several orders of magnitude due to the excitation of resonant surface waves, and this may occur at particular frequencies. Finally, we study the spatial coherence of thermal sources and the substantial influence of the near field. Surface waves may induce long-range spatial correlation, on a scale much larger than the wavelength. Conversely, quasi-static contributions, as well as skin-layer currents, induce arbitary small correlations. With the recent development of local (optical and thermal) probe microscopy and the advent of nanotechnology, it seems necessary to revisit the old subject of coherence of thermal fields.
Y1  - 2001
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
A1  - Joulain, Karl
A1  - Mulet, J. P.
A1  - Greffet, Jean-Jacques
T1  - Radiation forces on small particles in thermal near fields
N2  - We study the optical forces due to the radiation of a thermal source. Our model consists of a particle modelled by a dipole above a half-space at temperature T. The fluctuating fields are computed using the Lifshitz model. We find two contributions to the force: a repulsive "wind" component and a dispersive force mainly due to the contribution of thermally excited surface waves. It is found that for SIC material, the latter is repulsive in the very near field. The usual van der Waals force is larger by a factor of approximately ten for submicron size particles.
Y1  - 2002
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Greffet, Jean-Jacques
A1  - Carminati, Rémi
A1  - Joulain, Karl
A1  - Mulet, J. P.
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
A1  - Mainguy, S.
T1  - Coherent spontaneous emission of light due to surface waves
Y1  - 2003
SN  - 0303-4216
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
A1  - Joulain, Karl
A1  - Mulet, J. P.
A1  - Greffet, Jean-Jacques
T1  - Coupled surface polaritons and the Casimir force
N2  - The Casimir force between metallic plates made of realistic materials is evaluated for distances in the nanometer range. A spectrum over real frequencies is introduced and shows narrow peaks due to surface resonances (plasmon polaritons or phonon polaritons) that are coupled across the vacuum gap. We demonstrate that the Casimir force originates from the attraction (repulsion) due to the corresponding symmetric (antisymmetric) eigenmodes, respectively. This picture is used to derive a simple analytical estimate of the Casimir force at short distances. We recover the result known for Drude metals without absorption and compute the correction for weakly absorbing materials
Y1  - 2004
ER  -