Heat transfer between a nano-tip and a surface

We study quasi-ballistic heat transfer through air between a hot nanometre-scale tip and a sample. The hot tip/surface configuration is widely used to perform non-intrusive confined heating. Using a Monte Carlo simulation, we find that the thermal conductance reaches 0.8 MW m −2 K −1 on the surface under the tip and show the shape of the heat flux density distribution (nanometre-scale thermal spot). These results show that a surface can be efficiently heated locally without contact. The temporal resolution of the heat transfer is a few tens of picoseconds.