  In the theory of radiative heat exchanges between two closely-spaced bodies
introduced by Polder and van Hove, no interplay between the heat carriers
inside the materials and the photons crossing the separation gap is assumed.
Here we release this constraint by developing a general theory to describe the
conduction-radiation coupling between two solids of arbitrary size separated by
a subwavelength separation gap. We show that, as a result of the temperature
profile induced by the coupling with conduction, the radiative heat flux
exchanged between two parallel slabs at nanometric distances can be several
orders of magnitude smaller than the one predicted by the conventional theory.
These results could have important implications in the fields of nanoscale
thermal management, near-field solid-state cooling and nanoscale energy
conversion.
