Cascaded Nanorod Arrays for Ultrabroadband, Omnidirectional and Polarization-Insensitive Absorption

Abstract

An ultrabroadband, omnidirectional, and polarization-insensitive absorber based on cascaded nanorod arrays (CNAs) is numerically demonstrated, and an average absorptivity of 98.2% with a relative absorption bandwidth (RAB) of 149.8% can be achieved in the 0.38–2.65 μm wavelength range. The proposed CNA-based absorber requires only several pairs of multilayers to achieve excellent absorption performance. More significantly, the physical mechanism for this intriguing ultrabroadband absorption results from the synergistic effect of localized surface plasmon (LSP) and plasmonic resonant cavity (PRC) modes, which is fundamentally different from the tapered metal/dielectric multilayer-based absorbers associated with the slow-light mode. We investigated the absorption properties of the CNA-based metasurface by using the impedance theory, which indicates that the impedance of the structure matches well with the impedance of the free space from the visible to near-infrared wavelength range. In addition, the absorption properties of the CNA-based metasurface are robust to the variation of the structural parameters and the metal/dielectric materials, and ultrabroadband absorption performance can be maintained within 0–60° for both TM and TE modes.

Keywords

• light absorption
• cascaded nanorod arrays
• ultrabroadband
• omnidirectional
• polarization-insensitive