Refractory Ti/TiN resonators based meta-surface for perfect light absorption

Refractory materials have wide applications due to their high thermal and chemical stability. In this work, we numerically design the plasmonic structure for perfect light absorption using the resonant behaviours for these materials. The results of the simulation are presented using the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. The maximum absorption reaches 99.9% and the near-unity absorption window spans a bandwidth of 1182 nm from 413 nm in the visible to 1595 nm in the near-infrared range. Strong plasmonic near-field coupling between the adjacent parts in the split circular Ti resonator and their coupling to the plasmon resonances of the TiN layer are the main reasons for the ultra-broadband perfect absorption. Moreover, the absorption is observed to be incident angle insensitive and polarization independent. Absorption properties can be manipulated via tuning the structural parameters. These impressive absorption features and the high thermal stability can have wide applications in the high-intensity or extreme condition operation such as laser pumping and nonlinear optics, and solar related technologies including thermal steam generation and desalination of seawater. (paper)