Robust Broadband Infrared Unidirectional Absorption Enabled by a Non-Hermitian Multilayer

TL;DR

This paper presents a non-Hermitian multilayer structure that achieves robust broadband unidirectional infrared absorption, enabling control over thermal radiation with potential applications in thermal management.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel multilayer design that achieves broadband unidirectional infrared absorption without strict exceptional-point conditions, enhancing robustness and practical applicability.

Findings

Achieves nearly perfect broadband absorption matching blackbody radiation at 373 K.

Suppresses backward absorption below 30%, demonstrating strong unidirectionality.

Enables thermal control with up to 21°C temperature difference between directions.

Abstract

Unidirectional electromagnetic absorption provides a powerful approach for controlling light and heat, yet broadband realization in the infrared spectral region remains experimentally unexplored. Here, we report a non-Hermitian multilayer structure that enables robust broadband infrared unidirectional absorption. By combining low- and high-loss materials and engineering their thicknesses using the transfer-matrix formulation, the structure exhibits nearly perfect absorption spectrally matched to the blackbody radiation at 373 K under forward illumination, while suppressing backward absorption below 30%. Spectral analysis indicates that the observed unidirectionality originates from non-Hermitian physics near an exceptional point. Notably, broadband unidirectional absorption is achieved even without strict exceptional-point condition. This indicates that the observed unidirectionality is governed by the combination effect of loss distribution and optical interference, rather than a singular condition, ensuring robustness against film thickness variations. Furthermore, thermal shielding experiments demonstrate that the structure enables unidirectional control of thermal radiation, resulting in a temperature difference of up to 21 0C between forward and backward configurations. These results establish a robust strategy for broadband directional control of infrared radiation, with potential applications in passive thermal management, including thermal smart windows and infrared heat-shielding devices.