No abstract

Electromagnetic wideband absorption is still perceived as a critical and formidable challenge to address with an unambiguous photonic absorber. Subwavelength metamaterial unit cells with unique and controlled features have recently gained considerable interest. However, meta‐atoms, generated using a quantum‐inspired pattern distribution, are underwhelming in existing literature to design photonic absorbers and their potential application to manufacture solar sails is still quite uncommon. In this article, to create a flexible, polarization‐insensitive, ultrathin and broadband metamaterial absorber; quantum interference pattern inspired design has been utilized. Notably, this work proposes a novel approach of fabricating solar sails for the space exploration that incorporates our proposed broadband photonic absorber rather than conventional reflectors. The Quantum‐Inspired‐Meta‐Absorber (QIMA) exhibits an absorption of over 91% for the visible domain i.e., 380 to 800 nm. It has a 99.99% peak absorption at 525.352 nm under a conventional plane‐polarized source. The study shows that broadband absorbers are almost equivalent to excellent reflectors to design the solar sails in terms of the time averaged force calculated by utilizing the Maxwell stress tensor method. Thus, the QIMA has the potential to be a viable alternative to reflectors in the design of futuristic solar sails for space exploration. The interference theory model has also been utilized to assure the dependability of calculated data, and additionally, the standard AM1.5 solar spectrum has been utilized to demonstrate the QIMA’s solar harvesting potentiality.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.