Perfect Solar Absorber Based on Four-Step Stacked Metamaterial

Abstract

Solar absorbers are of great significance in the development of new energy technologies. However, the current approaches are mostly complex and fail to achieve high absorption rates across a wide range of wavelengths. Here, we propose a four-step stacked metamaterial solar absorber that achieves near-perfect absorption. Our four-step stacked absorber (FSSA) boasts an average absorption rate of 96.32% from 499 nm to 2348.3 nm, and a high average absorption rate of 94.96% from 300 nm to 2500 nm. Electromagnetic mode analysis and the impedance matching theory were employed to analyze the designed FSSA, which revealed that the high absorption rates are due to the propagating surface plasmon resonance (PSPR) and localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) modes. The FSSA offers broadband, high absorption rates, and high spectrum selectivity. Additionally, the structural parameters are adjusted to optimize the proposed perfect solar absorber. This proposed absorber can have promising applications in the renewable energy industry.