Hasan Kocer

Omnidirectional, broadband light absorption using large-area, ultrathin lossy metallic film coatings

Resonant absorbers based on nanostructured materials are promising for variety of applications including optical filters, thermophotovoltaics, thermal emitters, and hot-electron collection. One of the significant challenges for such micro/nanoscale featured medium or surface, however, is costly lithographic processes for structural patterning which restricted from industrial production of complex designs. Here, we demonstrate lithography-free, broadband, polarization-independent optical absorbers based on a three-layer ultrathin film composed of subwavelength chromium (Cr) and oxide film coatings. We have measured almost perfect absorption as high as 99.5% across the entire visible regime and beyond (400–800 nm). In addition to near-ideal absorption, our absorbers exhibit omnidirectional independence for incidence angle over ±60 degrees. Broadband absorbers introduced in this study perform better than nanostructured plasmonic absorber counterparts in terms of bandwidth, polarization and angle independence. Improvements of such “blackbody” samples based on uniform thin-film coatings is attributed to extremely low quality factor of asymmetric highly-lossy Fabry-Perot cavities. Such broadband absorber designs are ultrathin compared to carbon nanotube based black materials, and does not require lithographic processes. This demonstration redirects the broadband super absorber design to extreme simplicity, higher performance and cost effective manufacturing convenience for practical industrial production.

Reduced near-infrared absorption using ultra-thin lossy metals in Fabry-Perot cavities

We show that a triple-layer metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure has spectrally selective IR absorption, while an ultra-thin metal film has non-selective absorption in the near infrared wavelengths. Both sub-wavelength scale structures were implemented with an ultra-thin 6 nm Cr top layer. MIM structure was demonstrated to have near perfect absorption at λ = 1.2 μm and suppressed absorption at λ = 1.8 μm in which experimental and simulated absorptions of the thin Cr film are even higher than the MIM. Occurrence of absorption peaks and dips in the MIM were explained with the electric field intensity localization as functions of both the wavelength and the position. It has been shown that the power absorption in the lossy material is a strong function of the electric field intensity i.e. the more the electric field intensity, the more the absorption and vice versa. Therefore, it is possible to engineer IR emissive properties of these ultra-thin nanocavities by controlling the electric field localization with proper designs.

Intensity tunable infrared broadband absorbers based on VO2 phase transition using planar layered thin films

Plasmonic and metamaterial based nano/micro-structured materials enable spectrally selective resonant absorption, where the resonant bandwidth and absorption intensity can be engineered by controlling the size and geometry of nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate a simple, lithography-free approach for obtaining a resonant and dynamically tunable broadband absorber based on vanadium dioxide (VO2) phase transition. Using planar layered thin film structures, where top layer is chosen to be an ultrathin (20 nm) VO2 film, we demonstrate broadband IR light absorption tuning (from ~90% to ~30% in measured absorption) over the entire mid-wavelength infrared spectrum. Our numerical and experimental results indicate that the bandwidth of the absorption bands can be controlled by changing the dielectric spacer layer thickness. Broadband tunable absorbers can find applications in absorption filters, thermal emitters, thermophotovoltaics and sensing.

Geometrical parameter investigation of metamaterial absorber for space based remote sensing applications

Metamaterials have great potential for the practical applications of stealth technology. Therefore, it is important to understand effect of their geometrical parameters on the electromagnetic wave absorption. In this paper, dependence of the absorption on certain geometrical parameters of a metamaterial absorber is numerically investigated.

Nanostructured thin film-based near-infrared tunable perfect absorber using phase-change material

Abstract. Nanostructured thin film absorbers embedded with phase-change thermochromic material can provide a large level of absorption tunability in the near-infrared region. Vanadium dioxide was employed as the phase-change material in the designed structures. The optical absorption properties of the designed structures with respect to the geometric and material parameters were systematically investigated using finite-difference time-domain computations. Absorption level of the resonance wavelength in the near-IR region was tuned from the perfect absorption level to a low level (17%) with a high positive dynamic range of near-infrared absorption intensity tunability (83%). Due to the phase transition of vanadium dioxide, the resonance at the near-infrared region is being turned on and turned off actively and reversibly under the thermal bias, thereby rendering these nanostructures suitable for infrared camouflage, emitters, and sensors.

Vortex beam generation using all dielectric metasurface

Refractive and conventional optical elements such as prisms and lenses are heavy, large-sized and have limited performance in light-material interactions. Due to these severe constraints, new types of structures called metasurfaces, which are composed of subwavelength structural elements with subwavelength thicknesses, are used instead of conventional and refractive based optical elements. Metasurfaces enable unprecedented control of phase, polarization, amplitude and impedance of incident light. Thanks to these very effective features, metasurfaces have gathered remarkable attention in wavefront manipulation of photons for various applications. Earlier attempts have deployed plasmonic metasurfaces in the designs. However, the light coupled to plasmons suffers from great optical loss, which restricts high transmission efficiency, at visible wavelengths due to intrinsic heat dissipation. This problem can be overcome using all dielectric structures operating mainly in the transmission mode. Here, we numerically demonstrate vortex beam generation having donut-like intensity profile and 60% transmission efficiency. In this study, we use all dielectric metasurface that is composed of thick glass substrate and crystalline silicon which is shaped as trapezoid structure at 532 nm visible wavelength. The refractive indices of glass substrate and crystalline silicon are 1.46 and 4.15 with height of 220 nm, respectively at the designed wavelength. We have achieved 0-2π phase distribution by scaling trapezoid shaped silicon at fixed height. The interface of metasurface segmented 8 regions is filled with trapezoid shaped silicon with a π/4 phase increment in an azimuthal pattern. The obtained vortex beam can be used in various applications such as light trapping, optical tweezers, and laser beam forming.

Wave study of compound eyes for efficient infrared detection

Improving sensitivity in the infrared spectrum is a challenging task. Detecting infrared light over a wide bandwidth and at low power consumption is very important. Novel solutions can be acquired by mimicking biological eyes such as compound eye with many individual lenses inspired from the nature. The nature provides many ingenious approaches of sensing and detecting the surrounding environment. Even though compound eye consists of small optical units, it can detect wide-angle electromagnetic waves and it has high transmission and low reflection loss. Insects have eyes that are superior compared to human eyes (single-aperture eyes) in terms of compactness, robustness, wider field of view, higher sensitivity of light intensity and being cheap vision systems. All these desired properties are accompanied by an important drawback: lower spatial resolution. The first step to investigate the feasibility of bio-inspired optics in photodetectors is to perform light interaction with the optical system that gather light and detect it. The most common method used in natural vision systems is the ray analysis. Light wave characteristics are not taken into consideration in such analyses, such as the amount of energy at the focal point or photoreceptor site, the losses caused by reflection at the interfaces and absorption cannot be investigated. In this study, we present a bio-inspired optical detection system investigated by wave analysis. We numerically model the wave analysis based on Maxwell equations from the viewpoint of efficient light detection and revealing the light propagation after intercepting the first interface of the eye towards the photoreceptor site.

Wireless communication application of metamaterial antenna with Software Defined Radio

In this work, we present a high gain, broad bandwidth patch antenna which operates at 2.89-5.31 GHz using planar patterned metamaterial concept and its power reception performance. Ground plane is scraped with crossed strip-line gaps while the patch comprises separated micro triangular periodic gaps. The patterned metal patch and ground plane form a coupled capacitive-inductive circuit of negative index metamaterial. Moreover, metamaterial antennas experimental and theoretical power reception performances are evaluated for different selected intervals and compared by using Software Defined Radio.

Metamaterial based dual-band and polarization independent RF absorber

Metamaterials have great potential for the practical applications of electromagnetic wave absorption. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanism of the metamaterial based electromagnetic wave absorbers. In this paper, the design, simulation, fabrication and measurement of a polarization independent dual-band metamaterial absorber is presented in the microwave region. The proposed meta-material absorber shows perfect absorption peaks at 7.90 and 8.90 GHz which are in good agreement with the simulated results.

A metamaterial based broadband microstrip antenna

In this paper, a broad bandwidth and high gain rectangular patch antenna using planar-patterned metamaterial concept is proposed. Top patch has seperated micro triangular patterns with periodic gaps while the ground plane etched with crossed strip-line gaps. The patterned metal patch and ground plane form a coupled capacitive-inductive circuit of negative index metamaterial. Extended bandwidth from a few hundred megahertz to a few gigahertz is demonstrated. In addition, experimental and theoretical power reception performances of metamaterial and patch antennas for different selected frequencies are compared.