Patrick Bouchon

Wideband omnidirectional infrared absorber with a patchwork of plasmonic nanoantennas

In this Letter, we demonstrate experimentally that a patchwork of four metal-insulator-metal patches leads to an unpolarized wideband omnidirectional infrared absorption. Our structure absorbs 70% of the incident light on a 2.5 μm bandwidth at 8.5 μm. It paves the way to the design of wideband efficient plasmonic absorbers in the infrared spectrum.

Light funneling mechanism explained by magnetoelectric interference.

We investigate the mechanisms involved in the funneling of optical energy into subwavelength grooves etched on a metallic surface. The key phenomenon is unveiled thanks to the decomposition of the electromagnetic field into its propagative and evanescent parts. We unambiguously show that the funneling is not due to plasmonic waves flowing toward the grooves, but rather to the magnetoelectric interference of the incident wave with the evanescent field, this field being mainly due to the resonant wave escaping from the groove.

Total routing and absorption of photons in dual color plasmonic antennas

We present both theoretical and experimental evidence that two metal-insulator-metal plasmonic resonators can be combined into a wideband and total photon absorber in the mid-infrared. We show that, although closely arranged in a subwavelength period, these resonators behave as angularly independent antennas at their own resonant wavelength. The structures thus allow for an efficient dual color photon routing and collection.

Total funneling of light in high aspect ratio plasmonic nanoresonators

We demonstrate the total extinction of the reflectivity for a transverse magnetic polarized wave on a gold surface etched on 6% of its area by both narrow (150 nm) and deep (2 μm) grooves. These high aspect ratio metallic grooves were fabricated using a mold cast technique based on an electrolytic growth of gold. They exhibit two resonance peaks corresponding to the first and second cavity modes inside the grooves. We also evidence the incidence-invariance of their spectral response, which undoubtedly shows the localized nature of the resonances. These experimental results confirm the prediction of total funneling of light in very narrow grooves.

Fast modal method for subwavelength gratings based on B-spline formulation

We present a B-spline modal method for analyzing a stack of complex structured layers. Thanks to a B-spline approximation of the field, we solve the Maxwell equations. Diffraction calculation is based on the scattering matrices algorithm. We prove a good convergence of this method. Moreover, B-spline approximation results in very sparse matrices, which are used to hasten the computation of eigenmodes. A method for cleaning the inverted sparse matrix is also presented.

Analytical description of subwavelength plasmonic MIM resonators and of their combination.

We show that a periodic array of metal-insulator-metal resonators can be described as a high refractive index metamaterial. This approach permits to obtain analytically the optical properties of the structure and thus to establish conception rules on the quality factor or on total absorption. Furthermore, we extend this formalism to the combination of two independent resonators.

Metal–dielectric bi-atomic structure for angular-tolerant spectral filtering

We theoretically study metal-dielectric structures made of bi-atomic metallic gratings coupled to a guided-mode dielectric resonator. The bi-atomic pattern grating allows tailoring of the Fourier spectrum of the inverse grating permittivity in order to adapt the frequency gap and obtain a flat dispersion band over a wide angular range. A significant enhancement (two-fold) of the angular tolerance as compared to a simply periodic structure is obtained.

Shaping the spatial and spectral emissivity at the diffraction limit

Metasurfaces have attracted a growing interest for their ability to artificially tailor an electromagnetic response on various spectral ranges. In particular, thermal sources with unprecedented abilities, such as directionality or monochromaticity, have been achieved. However, these metasurfaces exhibit homogeneous optical properties whereas the spatial modulation of the emissivity up to the wavelength scale is at the crux of the design of original emitters. In this letter, we study an inhomogeneous metasurface made of a nonperiodic set of optical nano-antennas that spatially and spectrally control the emitted light up to the diffraction limit. Each antenna acts as an independent deep subwavelength emitter for given polarization and wavelength. Their juxtaposition at the subwavelength scale encodes far field multispectral and polarized images. This opens up promising breakthroughs for applications such as optical storage, anti-counterfeit devices, and multispectral emitters for biochemical sensing.

High efficiency quasi-monochromatic infrared emitter

Incandescent radiation sources are widely used as mid-infrared emitters owing to the lack of alternative for compact and low cost sources. A drawback of miniature hot systems such as membranes is their low efficiency, e.g., for battery powered systems. For targeted narrow-band applications such as gas spectroscopy, the efficiency is even lower. In this paper, we introduce design rules valid for very generic membranes demonstrating that their energy efficiency for use as incandescent infrared sources can be increased by two orders of magnitude.

Electromagnetic modelization of spherical focusing on a one-dimensional grating thanks to a conical B-spline modal method.

Focusing light onto nanostructures thanks to spherical lenses is a first step in enhancing the field and is widely used in applications. Nonetheless, the electromagnetic response of such nanostructures, which have subwavelength patterns, to a focused beam cannot be described by the simple ray tracing formalism. Here, we present a method for computing the response to a focused beam, based on the B-spline modal method adapted to nanostructures in conical mounting. The eigenmodes are computed in each layer for both polarizations and are then combined for the computation of scattering matrices. The simulation of a Gaussian focused beam is obtained thanks to a truncated decomposition into plane waves computed on a single period, which limits the computation burden.