Prof. Mikhail Kats at ECE Spring 2023 Colloquium
Engineering and measurement of thermal radiation
This talk will describe advances in the measurement, understanding, and manipulation of thermal radiation and other heat-powered radiation. First, several new measurement techniques based on thermal radiation: depth thermography, which yields temperature information below the surface of objects, and Planck spectroscopy, a minimalistic spectroscopy technique that requires no gratings, interferometers, or other wavelength-selective components. Then, the use of phase-transition materials to demonstrate negative- and zero-differential thermal emittance, and also introduce a new class of materials with giant optical anisotropy in the mid infrared. I will also discuss our recent demonstration of heat-powered infrared pulses down to picosecond scales, which includes components of thermal radiation and heat-powered radiation in nonequilibrium conditions. The out-of-equilibrium case will be discussed further, clarifying when heat-powered emission can exceed the Planck limit, and when it cannot.
About Professor Mikhail Kats
Mikhail Kats is Jack St. Clair Kilby Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include optical properties of engineered materials, novel optical and optoelectronic devices, tailoring of thermal radiation and radiative heat transfer, and related topics in optics and photonics. Prior to joining UW-Madison, he received his BS in Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 2008, and his PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard University in 2014. In 2018 and 2019, he was identified by Web of Science as a Highly Cited Researcher. His recognitions include the ONR Young Investigator Award, the AFOSR Young Investigator Award, and the NSF CAREER award, the IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award, the IEEE Nanotechnology Council Early Career Award, as well as selections to the Forbes “30 Under 30” and ASEE Prism’s “20 Under 40” lists.
