Hybrid Thermal Yagi-Uda Nanoantennas for Directional and Narrow Band Long-wavelength IR Radiation Sources

TL;DR

This paper explores hybrid SiC and Au Yagi-Uda nanoantennas for controlling thermal IR emission, demonstrating their potential for narrow-band, high-directivity IR sources suitable for sensor applications.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid antenna design that mitigates parasitic emission effects, enabling efficient, narrow-band, and directional thermal IR sources.

Findings

Hybrid antennas improve IR emission control.

Parasitic elements reduce performance in conventional designs.

Hybrid approach enables miniaturized IR sensors.

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of spatially and spectrally controlling the thermal infrared emission by exploitation of the Yagi-Uda antenna design. Hybrid antennas composed of both SiC and Au rods are considered and the contributions of emission from all the elements, at a given equilibrium temperature, are taken into account. We show that the detrimental effect due to thermal emission from the not ideal parasitic elements drastically affect the performances of conventional thermal Au antennas in the 12 micrometers wavelength range. Nevertheless, our results show that the hybrid approach allows the development of efficient narrow-band and high directivity sources. The possibility of exploiting the Yagi-Uda design both in transmission and in reception modes, may open the way to the realization of miniaturized, efficient, robust and cheap sensor devices for mass-market applications.