Infrared Absorption Efficiency Enhancement of the CMOS Compatible Thermopile by the Special Subwavelength Hole Arrays

Yun-Ying Yeh,Chi-Feng Chen,Chih-Hsiung Shen

doi:10.3390/app10082966

Yun-Ying Yeh, Chi-Feng Chen + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/app10082966

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Abstract

The infrared absorption efficiency (IAE) enhancement of the complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductorCMOS compatible thermopile with special subwavelength hole arrays in an active area was numerically investigated by the finite-difference time-domain method. It was found that the absorption efficiency of that thermopile was enhanced when the subwavelength rectangular-hole array added extra rectangular-columnar or ellipse-columnar structures in the hole array. The simulation results show that the IAEs of the better cases for the three types of rectangular columns and three ellipse columns were increased by 14.4% and 15.2%, respectively. Such special subwavelength hole arrays can be improved by the IAE of the CMOS compatible thermopile.

Highlights

With the advancement of computer-aided design and micro/nano-fabrication technologies [1], optical elements with functional micro-/nano-structures have been successfully used to improve the performance of components or modules, such as light-emitting diodes [2,3], photodetectors [4], solar systems [5,6], displays [7], and glass components [8]
The relative infrared absorption efficiency (IAE) is used to reveal the effect of the CMOS compatible thermopile
The relative is used to reveal the effect of the and isand written as: as the IAE of that thermopile with the extra subwavelength columnar structures (ESCS) is relative to onethermopile with is defined without those ESCS and is defined as the IAE of that thermopile with the ESCS is relative to one without thewith and is written as: the IAE of that thermopile with the ESCS

Summary

Introduction

With the advancement of computer-aided design and micro/nano-fabrication technologies [1], optical elements with functional micro-/nano-structures have been successfully used to improve the performance of components or modules, such as light-emitting diodes [2,3], photodetectors [4], solar systems [5,6], displays [7], and glass components [8]. The anti-reflective optical film having subwavelength structure arrays on its surface, and replicated by the use of a roll to roll micro-replication process is numerically and experimentally investigated [9,10]. Metal films or doped silicon wafers with subwavelength hole arrays (SHAs) have been proposed to enhance the transmission [11,12,13,14,15]. Ebbesen et al discovered the optical transmission of subwavelength cylindrical cavities in metal films could be significantly enhanced [11]. For such optically thick metal films, the zero-order transmission spectra are clearly related to the geometry of the hole array [11,12].

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