structural:expansion
Overview

The characteristics of thermal radiation depend on various properties of the surface from which it is emanating, including its temperature and its spectral emissivity, as expressed by Kirchhoff's law. The radiation is not monochromatic, i.e., it does not consist of only a single frequency, but comprises a continuous spectrum of photon energies, its characteristic spectrum. If the radiating body and its surface are in thermodynamic equilibrium and the surface has perfect absorptivity at all wavelengths, it is characterized as a black body. A black body is also a perfect emitter. The radiation of such perfect emitters is called black-body radiation. The ratio of any body's emission relative to that of a black body is the body's emissivity, so a black body has an emissivity of one.