High-temperature differences in plasmonic broadband absorber on PET and Si substrates

August 26, 2020

Title

High-temperature differences in plasmonic broadband absorber on PET and Si substrates

Author

Jin Hee Kim, Sung-Gyu Lee, Teun-Teun Kim, Taewoo Ha, Sang Hyup Lee, Ji-Hee Kim & Young Hee Lee

Year

2020

Journal

Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 13279 (2020)

Abstract

The characteristics of a plasmonic resonator with a metal–dielectric–metal structure is influenced by the size, shape, and spacing of the nanostructure. The plasmonic resonators can be used in various applications such as color filters, light emitting diodes, photodetectors, and broadband absorbers. In particular, broadband absorbers are widely used in thermophotovoltaics and thermoelectrics. To achieve a higher photothermal conversion efficiency, it is important to provoke a larger temperature difference in the absorber. The absorption and thermal conductance of the absorber has a great impact on the temperature difference, but in order to further improve the temperature difference of the absorber, the thermal conductivity of the substrate should be considered carefully. In this study, we designed Cr/SiO2/Cr absorbers on different substrates, i.e., polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and silicon. Although their optical properties do not change significantly, the temperature difference of the absorber on the PET substrate is considerably higher than that on the Si substrate under laser illumination, i.e., 164 K for ΔTPET and 3.7 K for ΔTSi, respectively. This is attributed to the thermal conductance of the substrate materials, which is confirmed by the thermal relaxation time. Moreover, the Seebeck coefficient of graphene on the absorber, 9.8 μV/K, is obtained by photothermoelectrics. The proposed Cr/SiO2/Cr structure provides a clear scheme to achieve high performance in photothermoelectric devices.

Instrument

V-670

Keywords

plasmonic broadband absorber, photothermoelectrics