Design of a shape-optimized metallic nanoheater

We present a structural optimization method for metal nanostructures based on the shape dependency of their electromagnetic (EM) heat dissipation and thermodynamic transfer to the surroundings. We have used a parallel genetic algorithm in conjunction with a coupled EM (finite-difference time-domain) and thermodynamic modeling of the metallic nanostructures for the optimization. The optimized nanostructure demonstrates significant improvement in EM heating in the spectral window of optimization as well as expedited cooling properties. The symmetry of the structures, which is inherent in the design procedure, makes them independent of the polarization at normal incidence and insensitive to the incident direction while incidence is inclined at an angle.