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Abstract A confinement‐induced nonlocal electromagnetic response model is applied to study radiative heat transfer processes in transdimensional plasmonic film systems. The results are compared to the standard local Drude model routinely used in plasmonics. The former predicts greater Woltersdorff length in the far‐field and larger film thicknesses at which heat transfer is dominated by surface plasmons in the near‐field, than the latter. The analysis performed suggests that the theoretical treatment and experimental data interpretation for thin and ultrathin metallic film systems must incorporate the confinement‐induced nonlocal effect in order to provide reliable results in radiative heat transfer studies. The fact that the enhanced far‐ and near‐field radiative heat transfer occurs for much thicker films than the standard Drude model predicts is crucial for thermal management applications with thin and ultrathin metallic films and coatings. 

Photonic technologies continue to drive the quest for new optical materials with unprecedented responses. A major frontier in this field is the exploration of nonlocal (spatially dispersive) materials, going beyond the local, wavevector-independent assumption traditionally adopted in optical material modeling. The growing interest in plasmonic, polaritonic, and quantum materials has revealed naturally occurring nonlocalities, emphasizing the need for more accurate models to predict and design their optical responses. This has major implications also for topological, nonreciprocal, and time-varying systems based on these material platforms. Beyond natural materials, artificially structured materials—metamaterials and metasurfaces—can provide even stronger and engineered nonlocal effects, emerging from long-range interactions or multipolar effects. This is a rapidly expanding area in the field of photonic metamaterials, with open frontiers yet to be explored. In metasurfaces, in particular, nonlocality engineering has emerged as a powerful tool for designing strongly wavevector-dependent responses, enabling enhanced wavefront control, spatial compression, multifunctional devices, and wave-based computing. Furthermore, nonlocality and related concepts play a critical role in defining the ultimate limits of what is possible in optics, photonics, and wave physics. This Roadmap aims to survey the most exciting developments in nonlocal photonic materials and metamaterials, highlight new opportunities and open challenges, and chart new pathways that will drive this emerging field forward—toward new scientific discoveries and technological advancements.