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Nano Research 2016, 9(8): 2354-2363 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1122-x
Research Article | Issue | Published: 04 June 2016

Ultrathin planar broadband absorber through effective medium design

Show Author's Information Dong Liu1,2,  Haitong Yu2,  Zhen Yang2,  Yuanyuan Duan2( )
School of Energy and Power EngineeringNanjing University of Science & TechnologyNanjing210094China
Key Laboratory of Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of EducationKey Laboratory for CO2 Utilization and Reduction TechnologyTsinghua UniversityBeijing100084China
Keywords:
solar energy, ultrathin planar film, broadband absorber, effective medium design
Cite this article:
Liu D, Yu H, Yang Z, et al. Ultrathin planar broadband absorber through effective medium design. Nano Research, 2016, 9(8): 2354-2363. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1122-x
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Ultrathin planar absorbers hold promise in solar energy systems because they can reduce the material, fabrication, and system cost. Here, we present a general strategy of effective medium design to realize ultrathin planar broadband absorbers. The absorber consists of two ultrathin absorbing dielectrics to design an effective absorbing medium, a transparent layer, and metallic substrate. Compared with previous studies, this strategy provides another dimension of freedom to enhance optical absorption; therefore, destructive interference can be realized over a broad spectrum. To demonstrate the power and simplicity of this strategy, we both experimentally and theoretically characterized an absorber with 5-nm-thick Ge, 10-nm-thick Ti, and 50-nm-thick SiO2 films coated on an Ag substrate fabricated using simple deposition methods. Absorptivity higher than 80% was achieved in 15-nm-thick (1/50 of the center wavelength) Ge and Ti films from 400 nm to near 1 μm. As an application example, we experimentally demonstrated that the absorber exhibited a normal solar absorptivity of 0.8 with a normal emittance of 0.1 at 500 ℃, thus demonstrating its potential in solar thermal systems. The effective medium design strategy is general and allows material versatility, suggesting possible applications in real-time optical manipulation using dynamic materials.


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About this article

Ultrathin planar broadband absorber through effective medium design

Show Author's information Dong Liu1,2, Haitong Yu2, Zhen Yang2, Yuanyuan Duan2( )
School of Energy and Power EngineeringNanjing University of Science & TechnologyNanjing210094China
Key Laboratory of Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of EducationKey Laboratory for CO2 Utilization and Reduction TechnologyTsinghua UniversityBeijing100084China

Abstract

Ultrathin planar absorbers hold promise in solar energy systems because they can reduce the material, fabrication, and system cost. Here, we present a general strategy of effective medium design to realize ultrathin planar broadband absorbers. The absorber consists of two ultrathin absorbing dielectrics to design an effective absorbing medium, a transparent layer, and metallic substrate. Compared with previous studies, this strategy provides another dimension of freedom to enhance optical absorption; therefore, destructive interference can be realized over a broad spectrum. To demonstrate the power and simplicity of this strategy, we both experimentally and theoretically characterized an absorber with 5-nm-thick Ge, 10-nm-thick Ti, and 50-nm-thick SiO2 films coated on an Ag substrate fabricated using simple deposition methods. Absorptivity higher than 80% was achieved in 15-nm-thick (1/50 of the center wavelength) Ge and Ti films from 400 nm to near 1 μm. As an application example, we experimentally demonstrated that the absorber exhibited a normal solar absorptivity of 0.8 with a normal emittance of 0.1 at 500 ℃, thus demonstrating its potential in solar thermal systems. The effective medium design strategy is general and allows material versatility, suggesting possible applications in real-time optical manipulation using dynamic materials.

Keywords: solar energy, ultrathin planar film, broadband absorber, effective medium design

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 28 December 2015
Revised: 23 April 2016
Accepted: 25 April 2016
Published: 04 June 2016
Issue date: August 2016

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51236004 and 51321002).

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