Kirchho 's Law of Thermal Emission: 150 Years

Abstract

In this work, Kirchhoff’s law (Kirchhoff G. Monatsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, sessions of Dec. 1859, 1860, 783–787) is being revisited not only to mark its 150th anniversary but, most importantly, to highlight serious overreaching in its formulation. At the onset, Kirchhoff’s law correctly outlines the equivalence between emission and absorption for an opaque object under thermal equilibrium. This same conclusion had been established earlier by Balfour Stewart (Stewart B. Trans. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, 1858, v. 22(1), 1–20). However, Kirchhoff extends the treatment beyond his counterpart, stating that cavity radiation must always be black, or normal: depending only on the temperature and the frequency of observation. This universal aspect of Kirchhoff’s law is without proper basis and constitutes a grave distortion of experimental reality. It is readily apparent that cavities made from arbitrary materials ( < 1) are never black. Their approach to such behavior is being driven either by the blackness of the detector, or by black materials placed near the cavity. Ample evidence exists that radiation in arbitrary cavities is sensitive to the relative position of the detectors. In order to fully address these issues, cavity radiation and the generalization of Kirchhoff’s law are discussed. An example is then taken from electromagnetics, at microwave frequencies, to link results in the resonant cavity with those inferred from the consequences of generalization.