Single mode thermal emission

Journal
Optics express  
Volume
23
Issue
21
Start Page
27672
End Page
27682
Citation
Optics Express 21 (23): 27672-27682 (2015)
Publisher DOI
10.1364/OE.23.027672
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84957070574
Publisher
Optical Society of America
© 2015 Optical Society of America. We report on the properties of a thermal emitter which radiates into a single mode waveguide. We show that the maximal power of thermal radiation into a propagating single mode is limited only by the temperature of the thermal emitter and does not depend on other parameters of the waveguide. Furthermore, we show that the power of the thermal emitter cannot be increased by resonant coupling. For a given temperature, the enhancement of the total emitted power is only possible if the number of excited modes is increased. Either a narrowband or a broadband thermal excitation of the mode is possible, depending on the properties of the emitter. We finally discuss an example system, namely a thermal source for silicon photonics.
DDC Class
620: Ingenieurwissenschaften