| Country | United States |
| City | Stanford, CA |
| Tier | Engineered emissivity / thermal photonics (Tier III) |
| Primary ecosystem | Engineered emissivity — thermal photonics |
| Relevant unit | Fan Group — Ginzton Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering |
| Principal investigator | Shanhui Fan |
| Thematic focus | Designed rather than measured emissivity |
The Fan Group is one of the landmark academic groups in thermal photonics and radiative cooling. The group lists radiative cooling among its current research topics, and its publication record includes foundational work on thermal emission control, radiative cooling, photonic cooling of solar absorbers, and related optical-thermal engineering. This is a premier academic center for designed emissivity, rather than only measured emissivity.
Thermal photonics and radiative cooling; design of engineered emissivity through nanophotonic structures; foundational theoretical and experimental work on thermal emission control.
Passive radiative cooling as a modern research area owes much of its current shape to work done at Stanford, where the question shifted from “what is the emissivity of this material?” to “what emissivity spectrum should we engineer, and how?” Groups that reframe emissivity as a design variable — constrained by the atmospheric transmission window, by thermodynamic limits, and by photonic reciprocity — sit at a different point in the field than metrology labs, but they are equally essential to a complete map of it.
Every claim in this profile traces to the external sources listed above. Profile follows the research-map methodology. Last verified: 2026-04 (directory revision 2026-06-11).