Efficient absorption of light is required for a large number of applications such as thermo-photovoltaics,thermal imaging, bio-sensing, thermal emitters, astronomy, and stealth technology. Strong light absorbers found in nature with high intrinsic losses such as carbon black, metal-black, and carbon nano-tubes etc. are bulky, not design-tunable and are hard to pattern for micro- and nano- devices. We developed thin-film, high performance absorbers in the visible, near-, mid-, long-wave - and far-IR region based on a 3 layer metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) structure. We fabricated a 3-layerMDMabsorber with large band-widths in the visible and near IR spectral range without any lithographic patterning. This was the first demonstration in the optical range of the Salisbury Screen, which was originally invented for radar absorption. A Fabry-Perot cavity model depending on the thickness of the dielectric, but also the effective permittivity of the semi-transparent top metal gives calculated spectra that agree well with experiment. Secondly, we fabricated long-wave IR and far-IR MDM absorbers comprising surface patterns of periodic metal squares on the dielectric layer. Strong absorption in multiple bands were obtained, and these depended weakly on polarization and angle of incidence. Though such absorbers had been extensively studied by electrodynamic simulations and experiment in the visible to far- R regions, there existed no analytic model that could accurately predict the wavelengths of the multiple resonances. We developed a theoretical model for these absorbers based on standingwave resonances, which accurately predicts resonance wavelengths for experiment and simulation for the first time. Unlike metamaterial theories our model does not depend on the periodicity of the squares but only on their lateral dimension and the thickness of the dielectric. This feature is confirmed by synchrotron-based IR spectral imaging microscopy of single isolated squares.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-2237 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| Creators | Nath, Janardan |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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