We propose a combined fabrication method of reactive ion etching and largescale colloidal mask to fabricate mid-infrared metamaterial perfect absorbers using aluminumaluminum oxide-aluminum trilayers. The absorptivities of the fabricated samples reached as high as 98% and the absorption bandwidths were comparable to those of the absorbers based on gold or silver. Following Kirchhoff's law, their emission spectra exhibited sharp single emission peaks indicating high potential as narrow-band infrared emitters. The results obtained here demonstrate that earth-abundant aluminum is a high-performance plasmonic materials in the mid-infrared range, and open up a route for fabricating cost-effective scalable plasmonic devices such as efficient light harvesting structures, thermal emitters and infrared sensors.
We
report the fabrication of titanium nitride (TiN) films with
the “best” plasmonic behavior reported so far by the
pulsed laser deposition method. Even though the deposition is done
at room temperature (∼25 °C) and grown on an amorphous
native oxide of a silicon wafer, the plasmonic property of the TiN
is comparable to that of gold, which is a conventional plasmonic material
in the visible to near-infrared region. Because of the highly plasmonic
nature of the TiN, the near field around the TiN nanostructure can
be as high as that of a gold nanostructure. A room-temperature process
without a strict requirement on the substrate allows depositing a
TiN film even on a flexible polymer film without degrading its property.
Our results pave the way for using TiN as a truly practical plasmonic
material, replacing the use of noble metals.
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