Surface phonon-polaritons (SPhPs) are evanescent electromagnetic surface waves generated by the phononphoton coupling and that propagate along the interface of a polar medium (such as SiO2 and SiC) and a dielectric one. In this work, we investigate possible applications of SPhPs for enhancing the thermal performance of micro- and nanoscale devices, focusing of thermal energy with micro-structures, decreasing the diffraction angles of infrared radiation on subwavelength apertures, and demonstrating broadband coherent thermal emission. We also perform infrared spectroscopy microscopy measurements of microscale objects and demonstrate long-range thermally excited surface modes in a broad frequency range. The results presented in this thesis ca...