Ultrathin thermally stable multiband metamaterial absorber design for solar energy applications

A dual band metamaterial absorber is designed for photovoltaic applications. The novelty of the design provides the absorption of the energy in an ultrathin semiconductor layer. Additionally, dependence of the absorption on the geometric dimensions, polarization, and temperature are also discussed. The results for the thermal characterization of the aforementioned design showed that this absorber operates almost independently from the environmental temperature conditions and the polarization of the light. According to the obtained results, the proposed metamaterial absorber can be a good candidate for the photovoltaic energy generation. (C) 2018 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE