Near-Field Radiative Nanothermal Imaging of Nonuniform Joule Heating in Narrow Metal Wires

Probing spatial variation of temperature at the nanoscale provides key information for exploring diverse areas of modern science and technology. Despite significant progress in the development of contact thermometers with high spatial resolution, one inherent disadvantage is that the quantitative analysis of temperature can be complicated by the direct thermal contact. On the other hand, noncontact infrared radiation thermometer is free from such contact-induced disturbance, but suffers from insufficient spatial resolution stemming from diffraction-limit in the micrometer range. Combining a home-built sensitive infrared microscope with a noncontact scattering probe, we detected fluctuating electromagnetic evanescent fields on locally heated material surface, and thereby mapped temperature distribution in subwavelength scales. We visualize nanoscale Joule heating on current-carrying metal wires and find localized “hot-spots” developing along sharp corners of bended wires in the temperature mapping. Simulation calculations give quantitative account of the nanoscale temperature distribution, definitely indicating that the observed effect is caused by the nonuniform energy dissipation due to the current-crowding effect. The equipment in this work is a near-field version of infrared radiation thermometer with a spatial resolution far below the detection wavelength (