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When heat travels between two objects that are not touching, it flows differently at the smallest scales--distances on the order of the diameter of DNA, or 1/50,000 of a human hair. Researchers have been aware of this for decades, however, they haven't understood the process. Now, in a unique, ultra-low vibration lab at the University of Michigan, engineers have measured how heat radiates from one surface to another in a vacuum at distances down to 2 nanometers.
Pictured here is a view inside the ultra-high vacuum scanning thermal microscope that was used to measure temperature fluxes at the nanoscale.Image credit: Pramod Reddy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
