Fabrication of Broad Band Mid-Infrared Absorber based on Periodic Dielectric-Thin Metal Film Multilayer Structures

We present results from measurements on periodic multilayer structure of alternating dielectric and thin metal layers to achieve a broadband absorber of mid-infrared radiation. We examine the effect on performance of a back-reflective metallic bottom layer, surface roughness at interfaces, the metal conductance, the thickness of dielectric layers, and a patterned anti-reflective layer. We determine optimum structure parameters for absorption of a 500 K-black body spectrum, and find that the numerical results agree well with the measured absorption spectra. We also investigate the possibility of fabricating a patterned anti-reflective layer to further increase the absorption.