Phys.org  March 4, 2024
Researchers at UMass, Amherst, revisited the Fourier’s law for heat transfer and transport within translucent materials. They compared the model predictions to infrared-based measurements with nearly mK temperature resolution. After heat pulses, they found macroscale non-Gaussian tails in the surface temperature profile. At steady state, they found  macroscale anomalous hot spots when the sample was topographically rough. These discrepancies from Fourier’s law for translucent materials suggested that internal radiation whose mean-free-path is millimeters interacted with defects to produce small heat sources that by secondary emission afford an additional, non-local mode of heat transport. According to the researchers, for polymer and inorganic glass materials, this suggests unique strategies of heat management design… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE