Investigation of a Pyramid-like Optical Absorber with High Absorptivity in the Range of Ultraviolet A to Middle Infrared

Abstract

In this study, a simple pyramid-like ultra-wideband absorber was designed to explore high absorptivity across a wide bandwidth. The absorber consisted of eight layers organized into four groups, and each group comprised a metal layer followed by an oxide layer, both of which were square with equal side lengths. Specifically, the chosen oxides, arranged from bottom to top, included SiO2 (t7 layer), Al2O3 (t5 layer), SiO2 (t3 layer), and Al2O3 (t1 layer). In the initial design phase, the thickness of the t8 Ti layer was set to 50 nm and assigned initial values to the thicknesses of the t7-t1 layers, and the widths of the four groups w4, w3, w2, and w1, decreased successively from bottom to top, creating a structure reminiscent of a pyramid. Comsol (version 6.0) was utilized to simulate and systematically vary one parameter at a time, ranging from the thicknesses of the t7-t1 layers to the widths of w4-w1, in order to identify the most suitable structural parameters. Our analyses demonstrated that multimode resonance arose due to the emergence of absorption peaks at lower wavelengths between larger and smaller areas. Additionally, surface plasmon resonance and interference effects between various layers and materials were attributed to the alternating arrangement of metal and oxide layers. The enhancements in the electric field observed at different resonance peak wavelengths illustrated the Fabry–Perot cavity effect, while the impedance matching effect was observed through variations in the real and imaginary parts of the optical impedance with respect to the wave vector. After simulating using these optimally found thicknesses and widths, the aforementioned effects manifested in the pyramid-like ultra-wideband absorber we designed, with its absorptivity surpassing 0.900 across the spectrum from ultraviolet A (335 nm) to middle infrared (4865 nm).