Capacitor physics in ultra-near-field heat transfer

Using the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism, we propose a microscopic theory for near-field radiative heat transfer between charged metal plates focusing on the Coulomb interactions. Tight-binding models for the electrons are coupled to the electric-field continuum through a scalar potential. For a two-quantum-dot model a new length scale emerges below which the heat current exhibits great enhancement. This length scale is related to the physics of parallel plate capacitors. At long distances d, the energy flux decreases as 1/d² .