Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Hu, Jinhui
• Pérez, Luis A
• Garcia-Pomar, Juan Luis
• Mihi, Agustín
• Garriga, Miquel
• Alonso, M. Isabel
• Goñi, Alejandro R

Titel

Efficient infrared sunlight absorbers based on gold-covered, inverted silicon pyramid arrays

Ist Teil von

• Materials advances, 2022-01, Vol.3 (5), p.2364-2372

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The transparency of silicon in the infrared region enables the design of nano/microstructures for implementation in devices to harvest the infrared (IR) part of the solar spectrum. Herein we report a strategy that uses arrays of inverted silicon pyramids covered with a thin gold film, which exhibit substantial light absorption in the infrared spectral range (below the gap of Si). The absorption stems from the resonant excitation at infrared wavelengths of surface-plasmon polaritons at the metal/dielectric interface mainly by tuning size and separation of the inverted pyramids. The array-parameter optimization proceeded by iteration of the calculation and measurement of the infrared response using finite difference time-domain simulations and Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy, respectively. We analyse the calculated near-field distributions specifically looking for the presence of hot spots, i.e. nano-sized regions of very high concentration of the electronic charge and strong electromagnetic field enhancement, and discuss their potential for hot-electron generation. We show two fabrication routes for this kind of metal/silicon metamaterial either by photolithography or scalable nanoimprint techniques for a seamless integration in optoelectronic fabrication processes. Arrays of gold-covered inverted silicon pyramids exhibit strong light absorption in the near infrared and large field enhancements at hot spots, due to resonant excitation of surface-plasmon polaritons at the metal/dielectric interface.