Kirchhoff’s metasurfaces towards efficient photo-thermal energy conversion

Thermo-optical properties of the nanodisc and metal hole array plasmonic perfect absorber (PPA) metasurfaces were designed and characterized at mid-infrared wavelengths. Both, radiation emitter and detector systems operating in various spectral domains are highly sought after for a diverse range of applications, one example being future sensor networks employed in the internet-of-things. Reciprocity of the absorbance and emittance is shown experimentally, i.e., the PPAs are demonstrated to follow Kirchhoff’s law where the patterns exhibiting a strong optical absorption were found to be effective thermal emitters. Hence, the Kirchhoff’s law is experimentally validated for the metasurfaces in the IR spectral domain where there is a lack of solutions for spectrally narrow-band emitters. The highest efficiency of radiation-to-heat and heat-to-radiation conversion was obtained for Au-Si-Au composite structures.