Photonic refrigeration from time-modulated thermal emission

Abstract

Active photonic cooling is of significant importance to realize robust, compact, vibration-free, all-solid-state refrigeration. Currently proposed photonic cooling approaches are based on luminescence and impose stringent requirements on luminescence efficiency. We propose a new photonic cooling mechanism arising from temporal modulation of thermal emission. We show that this mechanism has a high thermodynamic performance that can approach the Carnot limit and yet does not rely on luminescence. Further, our work opens exciting new avenues in active, time-modulated control of thermal emission for cooling and energy harvesting applications.