Broadband near unity absorption meta-structure for solar thermophotovoltaic systems and optical window applications

Abstract

Developing a meta-structure with near-unity absorbance in the visible and infrared spectra for solar energy harvesting, photodetection, thermal imaging, photo-trapping, and optical communications is a long-term research challenge. This research presents a four-layered (insulator–metal–insulator–metal) meta-structure unit cell that showed a peak absorbance of 99.99% at 288–300 nm and the average absorbance of 99.18% over the 250–2000 nm wavelength range in TE and TM modes, respectively. The symmetric pattern of the resonator layer shows polarization insensitivity with an average absorption of 99.18% in both TE and TM modes. Furthermore, the proposed design shows a wide incident angle stability up to ≤60 degrees in both TE and TM modes. The proposed structure also exhibits negative index properties at 288–300 nm and 1000–2000 nm, respectively. The negative index properties of the proposed design generate an anti-parallel surface current flow in the ground and resonator layers, which induces magnetic and electric field resonance and increases absorption. The performance of the proposed design is further validated by the interference theory model and a zero value for the polarization conversion ratio (PCR). The electric field E, magnetic field H, and current distribution are analyzed to explain the absorption mechanism of the proposed meta-structure unit cell. It also exhibits the highest photo-thermal conversion efficiency of 99.11%, demonstrating the viability of the proposed design as a solar absorber. The proposed design promises potentially valuable applications such as solar energy harvesting, photodetection, thermal imaging, photo-trapping, and optical communications because of its decent performance.