Coherent Thermal Emission Research Articles

Highly circularly polarized and coherent thermal emission based on chiral quasi bound states in the continuum.

Polarization, temporal coherence, and spatial coherence are crucial for far-field thermal emission. However, achieving chiral thermal emission with both ultra-narrow bandwidth and ultrahigh directionality remains a challenge. In this study, we address this problem by combining the principles of band folding and chiral quasi bound states in the continuum. The demonstrated thermal emitter, a tri-layered structure consisting of a planar chiral silicon metasurface, a silica spacer, and a reflecting gold film, numerically achieves an emissivity circular dichroism of 0.984, a full width at half maximum of 1.6 nm, and a divergence angle of 1° at wavelength 1170 nm, surpassing the state-of-the-art thermal emitters. Our finding provides a new, to our knowledge, approach for designing chiral thermal emitters, which may find use in the areas of thermal lighting, infrared camouflage, thermal imaging, and infrared sensing.

Directive and coherent thermal emission of hybrid surface plasmon-phonon polaritons in n-GaN gratings of linear and radial shapes

Beaming and coherent thermal emission of the hybrid surface plasmon phonon polaritons (SPPhPs) was numerically and experimentally investigated employing the n-GaN surface relief gratings (SRGs) shaped in a linear and radial geometry. The polariton propagation losses were minimized numerically with the help of a rigorous coupled wave analysis model, while the spatial and temporal quality of selected mode radiation in a normal direction was maximized by fixing the grating period value at 17.5 µm and varying the grating filling factor from 75% to 25%. A set of optimal design linear and radial geometry SRG samples were fabricated in order to validate the emission characteristics of hybrid SPPhPs found by numerical modeling. We demonstrated that both efficient emission and beaming are possible to achieve through the excitation and interference of the same number but opposite sign hybrid polariton modes in n-GaN SRG.

Polarimetric analysis of thermal emission from both reciprocal and nonreciprocal materials using fluctuation electrodynamics

Coherent thermal emission for a given polarization has been observed in many metamaterials with micro/nanostructures. Emissivity is typically obtained based on the equivalence between absorptivity and emissivity according to Kirchhoff's law; however, such a relationship may be invalid for nonreciprocal media. This study aims at developing a more general approach, without the constraint of optical reciprocity, that is applicable to magneto-optical materials and magnetic Weyl semimetals. A polarimetric analysis is theoretically carried out based on fluctuation electrodynamics to provide a complete description of the emissivity for all polarization states. The Stokes parameters are calculated from the coherency matrix for a multilayered system, which may include anisotropic media and even nonreciprocal materials. It is demonstrated that thermal emission may be circularly or linearly polarized in selected directions and frequencies. The findings of this work are consistent with the modified Kirchhoff's law provided by several groups in recent years, and therefore, justify the appropriateness of both the direct and indirect methods. This study will help the design of desired thermal emitters for energy harvesting and thermal control.

Anisotropic epsilon-near-pole (ENP) resonance leads to hyperbolic photonic dispersion in homologous (Bi2)m(Bi2Se3)n topological quantum materials

The hyperbolic iso-frequency surface (dispersion) of photons in materials that arise from extreme dielectric anisotropy is the latest frontier in nanophotonics with potential applications in subwavelength imaging, coherent thermal emission, photonic density of state engineering, negative refraction, thermal hyperconductivity, etc. Most hyperbolic materials utilize nanoscale periodic metal/dielectric multilayers (superlattices) or metallic nanowires embedded inside the dielectric matrix that require expensive growth techniques and possess significant fabrication challenges. Naturally occurring bulk materials that exhibit tunable hyperbolic photonic dispersion in the visible-to-near-IR spectral ranges will, therefore, be highly beneficial for practical applications. Due to the layered structure and extreme anisotropy, a homologous series of (Bi2)m(Bi2Se3)n could serve as a unique class of natural hyperbolic material with tunable properties derived from different stoichiometry. In this Letter, we demonstrate hyperbolic photonic dispersion in a single crystal of weak topological insulator BiSe (m = 1 and n = 2), where a Bi2 layer is inserted between Bi2Se3 (m = 0 and n = 1) quintuple layers in the visible (525–710 nm) and near-UV (210–265 nm) spectral range. The origin of hyperbolic dispersion in homologous (Bi2)m(Bi2Se3)n topological quantum materials arises from their anisotropic epsilon-near-pole resonance corresponding to the interband transitions that lead to different signs of its dielectric permittivity. The tunability of hyperbolic dispersion is further demonstrated by alloying Bi2Se3 with Mn that alters the interband transition positions and expands their hyperbolic spectral regime from 500–1045 to 500–1185 nm.

Far-field coherent thermal emission from polaritonic resonance in individual anisotropic nanoribbons

Coherent thermal emission deviates from the Planckian blackbody emission with a narrow spectrum and strong directionality. While far-field thermal emission from polaritonic resonance has shown the deviation through modelling and optical characterizations, an approach to achieve and directly measure dominant coherent thermal emission has not materialised. By exploiting the large disparity in the skin depth and wavelength of surface phonon polaritons, we design anisotropic SiO2 nanoribbons to enable independent control of the incoherent and coherent behaviours, which exhibit over 8.5-fold enhancement in the emissivity compared with the thin-film limit. Importantly, this enhancement is attributed to the coherent polaritonic resonant effect, hence, was found to be stronger at lower temperature. A thermometry platform is devised to extract, for the first time, the thermal emissivity from such dielectric nanoemitters with nanowatt-level emitting power. The result provides new insight into the realisation of spatial and spectral distribution control for far-field thermal emission.

Nearly perfect resonant absorption and coherent thermal emission by hBN-based photonic crystals.

In this paper, we numerically demonstrate mid-IR nearly perfect resonant absorption and coherent thermal emission for both polarizations and wide angular region using multilayer designs of unpatterned films of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). In these optimized structures, the films of hBN are transferred onto a Ge spacer layer on top of a one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D PC) composed of alternating layers of KBr and Ge. According to the perfect agreements between our analytical and numerical results, we discover that the mentioned optical characteristic of the hBN-based 1D PCs is due to a strong coupling between localized photonic modes supported by the PC and the phononic modes of hBN films. These coupled modes are referred as Tamm phonons. Moreover, our findings prove that the resonant absorptions can be red- or blue-shifted by changing the thickness of hBN and the spacer layer. The obtained results in this paper are beneficial for designing coherent thermal sources, light absorbers, and sensors operating within 6.2 μm to 7.3 μm in a wide angular range and both polarizations. The planar and lithography free nature of this multilayer design is a prominent factor that makes it a large scale compatible design.

Wavelength-selective and diffuse infrared thermal emission mediated by magnetic polaritons from silicon carbide metasurfaces

In the present study, we experimentally demonstrate the spectrally coherent and diffuse thermal emission by exciting magnetic polaritons in SiC metasurfaces fabricated by the focused ion beam technique. Spectral emittance characterized by using an infrared microscope coupled to a Fourier transform spectrometer clearly shows a wavelength-selective emission peak as high as 0.8. Numerical simulations including emittance spectra and contour plot of electromagnetic field distribution were carried out to verify and understand the underlying mechanism of magnetic polaritons. The metasurfaces were further shown to be direction and polarization independent. The results would facilitate metasurfaces for applications like radiative thermal management and infrared sensing.

Thermal emission properties of one-dimensional grating with different parameters**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61378082 and 61675070) and the Project of High-level Professionals in the Universities of Guangdong Province, China.

Thermal emission is often presented as a typical incoherent process. Incorporating periodic structures on the tungsten surface offers the possibility to obtain coherent thermal emission sources. Here we illustrate grating as an example to examine the influence of the geometric parameters on the thermal emission properties. It is found that for very shallow gratings, only surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes can be excited and the emission efficiency is closely related with the filling factor. When the ratio of the depth to period of the grating is in the range from 1/20 to 1/2, the field between the adjacent corners can be coupled to each other across the air gap for the filling factor larger than 0.5 and produce a similar resonance as in an air rod. Further increase of the grating depth can cause the groove of the grating forming metal–insulator–metal (MIM) structures and induce surface plasmon standing wave modes. Our investigations will not only be helpful for manipulating thermal emission properties according to applications, but also help us understand the coupling mechanism between the incident electromagnetism waves and gratings with different parameters in various research fields.

Directional emissivity from two-dimensional infrared waveguide arrays

Fabrication and optical characterization of surfaces covered with open-ended metallic waveguides are presented along with numerical modeling of these structures. Both modeling and measurement of the structures indicate that the 2-D array of 3D metallic waveguides modify both the direction and spectral content of the emissivity, resulting in directionality normal to the surface due to the optical axis of the waveguides and spectrally narrow emissivity due to the lateral dimensions of the waveguides. Furthermore, the optical behavior of these structures is placed in the broader context of other structured emission/absorption surfaces such as organ pipe modes, surface plasmon modes, and coherent thermal emission from gratings.

Optical coherent thermal emission by excitation of magnetic polariton in multilayer nanoshell trimer.

A theoretical demonstration is given of coherent thermal emission via the visible region by exciting magnetic polaritons in isolated metal-dielectric-metal multilayer nanoshells and the collective behavior in a trimer comprising multilayer nanoshells. The dipolar metallic core induces magnetic polaritons in the dielectric shell creating a large enhancement of the emissivity, whose mechanism is different from that of film-coupled metamaterials. The coupling effect of the magnetic polaritons and the electric/magnetic modes of symmetric nanoparticle trimers is discussed to understand the collective behavior in self-assembled nanoparticle clusters with potential solar energy utilizations. The concept of hybridization is employed to understand the collective magnetic polaritons of a multilayer nanoshell trimer. The fundamental understanding gained herein opens up new ways to explore, control, and tailor spectral absorptance, thus facilitating rational design of novel self-assembled nanoclusters for energy harvesting.

Near- to far-field coherent thermal emission by surfaces coated by nanoparticles and the evaluation of effective medium theory.

Near-field thermal radiation may play significant role in the enhancement of energy harvesting and radiative cooling by new types of designer materials, which in turn can be crucial in the development of future devices. In this work, we present a case study to explore near- to far-field thermal emission and radiative flux from a thin polar SiC film coated by different size and shape nanoparticles. The same geometry with nano-particles is also considered as a layered medium, which is analyzed using Effective Medium Theory (EMT). A significant enhancement of emission, particularly at the far infrared, is observed when nanoparticles are placed on the surface of a SiC film with certain periodicities, which shows potential use of these structures for radiative cooling applications. Yet, these enhancements are not observed when the EMT approach is adapted, which is questioned for its accuracy of predicting near-to-far field transition regime of radiation transfer from corrugated surfaces.

Coherent thermal emission near 10.6 μm mediated by localized phonon-polariton modes in microparticle arrays

I study the thermal emission properties of periodic multilayer arrays of subwavelength particles made of silicon carbide embedded in a zinc selenide host medium. A unique interplay between the intrinsic phonon-polariton resonance of the single particle and the field thermally emitted from the different arrays of particles gives rise to a comb of highly coherent absorption/emissivity lines around 10.6 μm, ensuing ideal conditions to achieve long-wave infrared coherent sources.

Optimal crossed overlap of coherent vacuum ultraviolet radiation and thermal muonium emission for μSR with the Ultra Slow Muon

For μSR with ultra slow muon, we are constructing U line in materials and life science facility (MLF), J-PARC at present. Generation of ultra slow muon requires thermal muonium generation and laser resonant ionization process with vacuum ultraviolet radiation (1S→2P) and 355-nm radiation (2P→unbound). For laser resonant ionization, the coherent radiations and the thermal muonium emission must be coincident in time and space. The radiations can be steered in a chamber for reasonable overlap in space, and they can be easily overlapped in time because they are generated from one laser source. The trigger signal of the accelerator is useful for stable overlap in time.

Optical Properties of Single Infrared Resonant Circular Microcavities for Surface Phonon Polaritons

Plasmonic antennas are crucial components for nano-optics and have been extensively used to enhance sensing, spectroscopy, light emission, photodetection, and others. Recently, there is a trend to search for new plasmonic materials with low intrinsic loss at new plasmon frequencies. As an alternative to metals, polar crystals have a negative real part of permittivity in the Reststrahlen band and support surface phonon polaritons (SPhPs) with weak damping. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the resonance of single circular microcavities in a thin gold film deposited on a silicon carbide (SiC) substrate in the mid-infrared range. Specifically, the negative permittivity of SiC leads to a well-defined, size-tunable SPhP resonance with a Q factor of around 60 which is much higher than those in surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonators with similar structures. These infrared resonant microcavities provide new possibilities for widespread applications such as enhanced spectroscopy, sensing, coherent thermal emission, and infrared photodetectors among others throughout the infrared frequency range.

Measurement of Coherent Thermal Emission Due to Magnetic Polaritons in Subwavelength Microstructures

Spectral and directional control of thermal emission is critically important for applications such as space cooling and energy harvesting. The effect of magnetic polaritons (MPs) on spectral modulation has been analyzed in metallic grating structures with a dielectric spacer on a metallic film. It has been predicted that the spectral emission peaks exhibit omnidirectional characteristics when MPs are excited. The present work provides an experimental demonstration of coherent thermal emission from several microfabricated grating structures in the infrared region from room temperature to elevated temperatures. The emittance at elevated temperatures is directly measured using an emissometer, while the room-temperature emittance is indirectly obtained from the reflectance measurement. The rigorous coupled-wave analysis and an LC-circuit model are employed to elucidate the mechanisms of various resonant modes and their coupling effect, taking into consideration the temperature-dependent electron scattering rate of the metals.

Coherent emission of light using stacked gratings

The possibility of temporally and spatially coherent thermal emission has been demonstrated utilizing stacked gratings. We demonstrate that the metallic grating with narrow air slit behaves like a homogeneous slab with large permittivity and small permeability and find that the interaction between the metallic grating and the Bragg grating gives rise to impendence matching at wavelengths located in the photonic band gap of the Bragg grating, which enables the stacked gratings to perform high emission with ultranarrow spectrum and antenna-like spatial response. This paves the way towards the design of a novel infrared source platform for applications such as thermal analysis, imaging, security, biosensing, and medical diagnoses.

Taming the thermal emissivity of metals: A metamaterial approach

We demonstrate the possibility of realizing temporally coherent, wide-angle, thermal radiation sources based on the metamaterial properties of metallic gratings. In contrast to other approaches, we do not rely on the excitation of surface waves such as phonon-polaritons, plasmon-polaritons, or guided mode resonances along the grating, nor on the absorption resonances of extremely shallow metallic grating. Instead, we exploit the effective bulk properties of a thick metallic grating below the first diffraction order. We analytically model this physical mechanism of temporally coherent thermal emission based on localized bulk resonances in the grating. We validate our theoretical predictions with full-wave numerical simulations.

Phonon-mediated magnetic polaritons in the infrared region

Magnetic polaritons that couple electromagnetic waves with magnetic excitation can be used for tailoring the radiative properties of materials in energy-harvesting and other applications. Previous studies used metallic microstructures to induce magnetic responses. With rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA), transmission enhancement with a SiC slit array and coherent thermal emission with a SiC deep grating is theoretically demonstrated in the infrared within the phonon absorption band. The field distributions and the agreement in the resonance frequencies predicted from both RCWA and LC circuit models strongly suggest that magnetic polaritons exist in the SiC microstructures. This type of magnetic polariton is mediated by vibration of atoms in polar materials (i.e., optical phonons), rather than by free electrons in metals. Our results suggest that phonon-mediated magnetic polaritons have promising applications such as filters and selective coherent emitters in the infrared spectral region.

Coherent thermal emission in midinfrared from a bilayer structure

Abstract Recent years, there has been an increased interest to the conception of micro/nanostructures with unusual radiative properties, especially thermal sources with temporal and/or spatial coherent emission. Such structures are indeed extremely interesting for energy conversion systems, radiative cooling devices,…. The present study investigate numerically temporal coherent emission from a very simple structure composed with one stack of germanium and one of silicon carbide. Our investigation shows that, for well-defined thicknesses, this two-stack structure is able to emit in narrow spectral peak.

Spatially coherent surface resonance states derived from magnetic resonances

A thin metamaterial slab comprising a dielectric spacer sandwiched between a metallic grating and a ground plane is shown to possess spatially coherent surface resonance states that span a large frequency range and can be tuned by structural and material parameters. They give rise to nearly perfect angle-selective absorption and thus exhibit directional thermal emissivity. Direct numerical simulations show that the metamaterial slab supports spatially coherent thermal emission in a wide frequency range that is robust against structural disorder.