
Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation
Law of wavelength-specific emission and absorption

Law of wavelength-specific emission and absorption
In heat transfer, Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation refers to wavelength-specific radiative emission and absorption by a material body in thermodynamic equilibrium, including radiative exchange equilibrium. It is a special case of Onsager reciprocal relations as a consequence of the time reversibility of microscopic dynamics, also known as microscopic reversibility. It was stated by Gustav Kirchhoff in 1860. A body at temperature T radiates electromagnetic energy. A perfect black body in thermodynamic equilibrium absorbs all light that strikes it, and radiates energy according to a unique law of radiative emissive power for temperature T (Stefan–Boltzmann law), universal for all perfect black bodies. For a material that is not a perfect black body, Kirchhoff's law states that: Here, the dimensionless coefficient of absorption (or the absorptivity) is the fraction of incident light (power) at each spectral frequency that is absorbed by the body when it is radiating and absorbing in...
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