Ultrabroadband light absorption by a sawtooth anisotropic metamaterial slab

We present an ultrabroadband thin-film infrared absorber made of sawtoothed anisotropic metamaterial. Absorptivity of higher than 95% at normal incidence is supported in a wide range of frequencies, where the full absorption width at half-maximum is about 86%. Such property is retained well at a ver...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cui, Yanxia, Fung, Kin Hung, Xu, Jun, Ma, Hyungjin, Jin, Yi, He, Sailing, Fang, Nicholas Xuanlai
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: American Chemical Society (ACS) 2013
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/78347
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0501-8843
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5713-629X
Description
Summary:We present an ultrabroadband thin-film infrared absorber made of sawtoothed anisotropic metamaterial. Absorptivity of higher than 95% at normal incidence is supported in a wide range of frequencies, where the full absorption width at half-maximum is about 86%. Such property is retained well at a very wide range of incident angles too. Light of shorter wavelengths are harvested at upper parts of the sawteeth of smaller widths, while light of longer wavelengths are trapped at lower parts of larger tooth widths. This phenomenon is explained by the slowlight modes in anisotropic metamaterial waveguide. Our study can be applied in the field of designing photovoltaic devices and thermal emitters.