Thermal photonics boosts radiative cooling

_Nature Photonics_ (2022) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00921-9 Thermal radiation is commonplace in our everyday life, exemplified by natural sunlight and infrared thermometers. When an

object emits thermal radiation, a radiative cooling process carrying away energy from the object occurs spontaneously. Hence, the control of thermal radiation or radiative cooling is

beneficial not only to the development of practical cooling techniques, but also to the exploitation of renewable energy resources. An emerging field of thermal photonics provides exciting

opportunities for manipulating the radiative process artificially. In this review article, Shanhui Fan from Stanford University and Wei Li from Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics

and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences have discussed fundamental concepts involved in radiative cooling and summarized principles for tailoring thermal radiation with photonic structures.

The story starts with the demand of daytime radiative cooling and introduces photonic concepts and recent advances in this area. Inspired by the daytime radiative cooling, more scenarios

such as solar cell cooling, thermal management of outdoor colored objects and cooling textiles have been proposed. Thermodynamics in radiative cooling is finally discussed for harvesting

outgoing thermal radiation. We anticipate these fruitful discussions can help readers walk into thermal photonics and motivate researchers to find novel applications of radiative cooling.

AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Key Laboratory of 3D Micro/Nano Fabrication and Characterization of Zhejiang Province, School of Engineering, Westlake University, 18

Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou, 310024, Zhejiang Province, China Ding Zhao & Min Qiu * Institute of Advanced Technology, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, 18 Shilongshan Road, Hangzhou,

310024, Zhejiang Province, China Ding Zhao & Min Qiu Authors * Ding Zhao View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Min Qiu View author

publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Min Qiu. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS OPEN ACCESS This article is licensed under a

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license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Zhao, D., Qiu, M. Thermal photonics boosts radiative cooling. _Light

Sci Appl_ 11, 35 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-021-00691-7 Download citation * Received: 28 November 2021 * Accepted: 29 November 2021 * Published: 11 February 2022 * DOI:

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