Diffusive-to-ballistic transition of the modulated heat transport in a rarefied air chamber

Modulated heat transfer in air subject to pressures from 760 Torr to 10-4 Torr is experimentally studied by means of a thermal-wave resonant cavity placed in a vacuum chamber. This is done through the analysis of the amplitude and phase delay of the photothermal signal as a function of the cavity length and pressure through of the Knudsen’s number. The viscous, transitional, and free molecular regimes of heat transport are observed for pressures P>1.5 Torr, 25 mTorr<P<1.5 Torr, and P<25 mTorr; respectively. It is shown that the fingerprint of each regime is determined by the concavity of the amplitude decay in a length scan, which is concave upward for the viscous regime and concave downward in the free molecular one. Furthermore, the increase of the radiative contribution on both the amplitude and phase is also observed as the pressure reduces. The obtained results show that the proposed methodology can be used to study the molecular dynamics in gases supporting diffusive and ballistic heat transport.