Nanoantenna Absorbers for Thermal Detectors

Abstract

We present a mid-infrared absorber based on the nanoantennas for thermal infrared detectors. Our design utilizes a fraction of the noble metal used in conventional absorbers and is only one layer thick, which allows for extremely small thermal conductance leading potentially to very low thermal detector noise. In this numerical study, we demonstrate that the proposed nanoantenna absorber having an areal coverage of only 2.5% can absorb 10 times more efficiently than a single uniform metal layer of the same thickness.