Comment on ''Radiative transfer over small distances from a heated metal"

We show that there is no contradiction between the results presented by Pan [Opt. Lett. 25, 369 (2000)] and the 1/L-2 dependence of the radiative ener gy flux between two half-spaces separated by a small vacuum gap of width L obtained by Polder and Van Hove [Phys. Rev. B 4, 3303 (1971)] and by Loomis and Maris [Phys. Rev. B 50, 18517 (1994)]. (C) 2001 Optical Society of Ame rica.