A new experimental device for infrared spectral directional emissivity measurements in a controlled atmosphere is presented. The sample holder, which permits to measure spectral directional emissivity up to 1050K, is placed inside a stainless steel sample chamber that can be evacuated or filled with different gases. The signal detection is carried out by means of a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The experimental results focus on the capability of the device to perform emissivity measurements as a function of temperature, emission angle, and in situ surface state evolution. A careful study of the sample temperature homogeneity and the measurement method has been done, including the background radiation, the apparatus response function, and temperature differences between the sample and the blackbody radiator. As a consequence, a compact expression for the sample emissivity that generalizes those previously obtained for the direct radiometric measurement method is found. The error assessment shows that the main contribution to the emissivity uncertainty is related to the sample temperature. The overall uncertainty at intermediate temperature is estimated to be around 3% at short wavelengths. Emissivity measurements of Armco iron were used in order to check the accuracy of the experimental device. The experimental results show an excellent fit with direct emissivity data accessible in the literature, as well as with the theoretical emissivity obtained from the Hagen-Rubens relation.

Improving heat dissipation in increasingly miniature microelectronic devices is a serious challenge, as the thermal conduction in nanostructures is markedly reduced by increasingly frequent scattering of phonons on the surface. However, the surface could become an additional heat dissipation channel if phonons couple with photons forming hybrid surface quasiparticles called surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs). Here, we experimentally demonstrate the formation of SPhPs on the surface of SiN nanomembranes and subsequent enhancement of heat conduction. Our measurements show that the in-plane thermal conductivity of membranes thinner than 50 nm doubles up as the temperature rises from 300 to 800 kelvin, while thicker membranes show a monotonic decrease. Our theoretical analysis shows that these thickness and temperature dependencies are fingerprints of SPhP contribution to heat conduction. The demonstrated thermal transport by SPhPs can be useful as a previously unidentified channel of heat dissipation in a variety of fields including microelectronics and silicon photonics.

International audienceTetrathiafulvalene-chloranil (TTF-CA) was synthesized by two methods, liquid assisted grinding (LAG) and vapor digestion (VD), which largely reduce the use of reaction solvents. The effects of the small quantities of LAG solvent and solvent vapors in VD toward the formation of a particular TTF-CA product polymorph were studied from both tetrathiafulvalene forms (orange and brown) as reactants. It was concluded that a high solvent polarity index favors the formation of the ionic black polymorph of TTF-CA vs the quasi-neutral green form, whereas the crystal structure and crystal habit of the orange tetrathiafulvalene polymorph also favors the formation of the black TTF-CA. The crystal structure of the black TTF-CA was determined from synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD), and it consists of dimerized TTF+center dot and CA(-center dot) radical ions, in agreement with room temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements indicating the material is diamagnetic. FT-IR showed that the compound is a semiconductor with a small. band gap of similar to 0.198 eV and it remains ionic at low temperatures. The latter was confirmed by XRPD showing the black TTF-CA does not undergo a phase transition in the range 298-20 K. Band structure calculations are in good agreement with the measured band gap

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Emissivity measurements are of great interest for both theoretical studies and technological applications. Emissivity is a property that specifies how much radiation a real body emits as compared to a blackbody. The emissivity determination of a sample should be an easy task: a simple comparison between the sample and blackbody radiation at the same temperature. Unfortunately, when measuring the emissivity, some practical problems arise due to the differences between the true emitted radiation and the detected quantity. To clarify this point, an analysis of different direct methods for emissivity measurement is presented. Furthermore, a method that includes multiple reflections is developed. The systematic errors associated with each method are computed theoretically as a function of wavelength, sample temperature, and emissivity, and the surrounding enclosure temperature and emissivity. In general, the error is very high for small sample enclosures, but it strongly decreases when the enclosure area increases. Although at short wavelengths all the analyzed methods produce similar errors, noticeable differences appear under other conditions, and methods considering more radiation terms do not always produce lower errors.

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We report on the lattice evolution of BiFeO 3 as function of temperature using far infrared emissivity, reflectivity, and X-ray absorption local structure.A power law fit to the lowest frequency soft phonon in the magnetic ordered phase yields an exponent β=0.25 as for a tricritical point. At about 200 K below T N ~640 K it ceases softening as consequence of BiFeO 3 metastability. We identified this temperature as corresponding to a crossover transition to an order-disorder regime. Above ~700 K strong band overlapping, merging, and smearing of modes are consequence of thermal fluctuations and chemical disorder. Vibrational modes show band splits in the ferroelectric phase as emerging from triple degenerated species as from a paraelectric cubic phase above T C ~1090 K. Temperature dependent X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) at the Fe K-edge shows that lower temperature Fe 3+ turns into Fe 2+ . While this matches the FeO wüstite XANES profile, the Bi L III -edge downshift suggests a high temperature very complex bond configuration at the distorted A perovskite site. Overall, our local structural measurements reveal high temperature defect-induced irreversible lattice changes, below, and above the ferroelectric transition, in an environment lacking of long-range coherence. We did not find an insulator to metal transition prior to melting.

In order to design a device to carry out direct emissivity measurements, a key point is the analysis of all the uncertainty components that give rise to the combined standard uncertainty. This will permit to choose the most appropriate measurement method to minimize the uncertainty, and also to identify the sources of the largest errors. If the experimental device is already in use, the complete uncertainty characterization, in addition to the emissivity uncertainty calculation, will permit the improvement of the device capabilities. Thus, a guideline to the experimentalists working in this subject is provided. In this work, a complete study of the uncertainty components in direct emissivity determination is carried out. First of all, the emissivity measurement method and the uncertainty estimation methodology are introduced. After that, the influence of the uncertainties of each of the magnitudes used to obtain the emissivity is analyzed theoretically. The most important error sources depending on the measuring parameters have been identified. Finally, as a practical example, the error sources on a low emissivity sample are experimentally studied. In this case, it has been found that, at intermediate temperatures and short wavelength, the emissivity uncertainty is determined by the uncertainty in the sample temperature, whereas at long wavelength, the factor determining the emissivity uncertainty is the temperature uncertainty of the surroundings.