A design tool for direct and non-stochastic calculations of near-field radiative transfer in complex structures: The NF-RT-FDTD algorithm

Advances in nanotechnology and nanophotonics are inextricably linked with the need for reliable computational algorithms to be adapted as design tools for the development of new concepts in energy harvesting, radiative cooling, nanolithography and nano-scale manufacturing, among others. In this paper, we provide an outline for such a computational tool, named NF-RT-FDTD, to determine the near field radiative transfer between structured surfaces using Finite Difference Time Domain method. NF-RT-FDTD is a direct and non-stochastic algorithm, which accounts for the statistical nature of the thermal radiation and is easily applicable to any arbitrary geometry at thermal equilibrium. We present a review of the fundamental relations for far- and near-field radiative transfer between different geometries with nano-scale surface and volumetric features and gaps, and then we discuss the details of the NF-RT-FDTD formulation, its application to sample geometries and outline its future expansion to more complex geometries. In addition, we briefly discuss some of the recent numerical works for direct and indirect calculations of near-field thermal radiation transfer, including Scattering Matrix method, Finite Difference Time Domain method (FDTD), Wiener Chaos Expansion, Fluctuating Surface Current (FSC), Fluctuating Volume Current (FVC) and Thermal Discrete Dipole Approximations (TDDA). (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.