Theory of Thermal Emissivity and Enhanced Absorption in Sub-wavelength Metallo-Dielectric Photonic Crystals

Abstract

Metallo-dielectric photonic crystals are sharp thermal emitters at infrared wavelengths, and are being employed in sensors. We describe the theory of thermal emission and enhanced absorption in these photonic crystals using a scattering matrix approach, where Maxwell's equations are solved in Fourier space. A sub-wavelength hole array in a metal layer is coupled to a two-dimensional photonic crystal of the same periodicity in these metallo-dielectric photonic crystals. The sub-wavelength hole array has an enhanced transmission mode that couples to a weakly guided mode of the photonic crystal having similar modal character. The transmissive mode of the hole array is absorbed by the photonic crystal to create a sharp absorption and reflective minimum. The enhanced absorption is investigated in different lattice symmetries.