Infrared perfect absorber based on nanowire metamaterial cavities

TL;DR

This paper presents a design for an infrared perfect absorber using gold nanowire metamaterial cavities that achieves high absorption efficiency, polarization insensitivity, and omnidirectional performance through resonant cavity modes.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel gold nanowire metamaterial cavity structure that enables nearly perfect infrared absorption with polarization and angle insensitivity.

Findings

Achieves near-perfect light absorption in the infrared range.

Exhibits polarization-insensitive and omnidirectional absorption.

Efficiently converts incident optical energy into heat.

Abstract

An infrared perfect absorber based on gold nanowire metamaterial cavities array on a gold ground plane is designed. The metamaterial made of gold nanowires embedded in alumina host exhibits an effective permittivity with strong anisotropy, which supports cavity resonant modes of both electric dipole and magnetic dipole. The impedance of the cavity modes matches the incident plane wave in free space, leading to nearly perfect light absorption. The incident optical energy is efficiently converted into heat so that the local temperature of the absorber will increase. Simulation results show that the designed metamaterial absorber is polarization-insensitive and nearly omnidirectional for the incident angle.