A team of researchers at Stanford University has developed a theoretical way to cool down heated objects. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes their study of heat radiation and how it might be boosted to cool down a desired object.
Objects in the environment both radiate heat and receive it from the environment. Prior research has shown that heat radiated from an object does so in a spectrum, and that it peaks at a certain frequency determined by the temperature of the object. And when the number of incoming photons is greater than the number of outgoing photons, the object will grow warmer. In this new effort, the researchers sought to imagine a new type of cooling device that would work by reversing the heat exchange between an object and its environment by adding energy to radiated photons—in theory, doing so should carry away more heat.
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