Nickel-Based High-Bandwidth Nanostructured Metamaterial Absorber for Visible and Infrared Spectrum

The efficient control of optical light at the nanoscale level attracts marvelous applications, including thermal imaging, energy harvesting, thermal photovoltaics, etc. These applications demand a high-bandwidth, thermally robust, angularly stable, and miniaturized absorber, which is a key challenge to be addressed. So, in this study, the simple and cost-effective solution to attain a high-bandwidth nanostructured absorber is demonstrated. The designed nanoscale absorber is composed of a simple and plain circular ring of nickel metal, which possesses many interesting features, including a miniaturized geometry, easily fabricable design, large operational bandwidth, and polarization insensitivity, over the previously presented absorbers. The proposed nanoscale absorber manifests an average absorption of 93% over a broad optical window from 400 to 2800 nm. Moreover, the detailed analysis of the absorption characteristics is also performed by exciting the optical light's various incident and polarization angles. From the examined outcome, it is concluded that the nanostructured absorber maintains its average absorption of 80% at oblique incident angles in a broad wavelength range from 400 to 2800 nm. Owing to its appealing functionalities, such as the large bandwidth, simple geometry, low cost, polarization insensitivity, and thermal robustness of the constituting metal, nickel (Ni), this nano-absorber is made as an alternative for the applications of energy harvesting, thermal photovoltaics, and emission.