FDTD analysis of infrared radiative properties of microscale structure aluminum surfaces

Metallic triangular grating structures have a wide range of applications. This study focuses on the radiative properties of triangular grating structures of aluminum in the mid-infrared wavelength to determine if we can tailor the infrared radiative properties by designing special geometrical details into triangular grating surfaces. Fabrication of triangular gratings within the range of micron scale is very difficult. Therefore, the influences of slight geometry modification, generated by fabrication errors, on radiative properties of triangular gratings are mainly investigated. The electromagnetic wave scattering from such surfaces is predicted by solving Maxwell's equations using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The results show that the spectral reflectance varies with the dimensions of triangular gratings, which is due to the excitation of surface wave by confirmation of the EM fields. It is found that the spectral reflectance can also be reduced by increasing the height of slight geometry modification. The effect of oblique incident wave state is also investigated. An optical vortex is found due to the coupling of surface waves, the oblique incident wave and the scattering waves. This study helps to gain a better understanding of the radiative properties of metallic triangular gratings with slight geometry modification and will have an impact on triangular grating processing.