Thermal Radiative Properties of a SiC Grating on a Photonic Crystal

Abstract

Spectral and directional control of thermal emission holds substantial importance in different kinds of applications, where heat transfer is predominantly by thermal radiation. Several configurations have previously been proposed, like using gratings, photonic crystals (PCs) and resonant cavities. In the present work, we investigate the thermal radiative properties of a microstructure consisting of a SiC grating on a photonic crystal. The emissivity of the microstructure is calculated with the rigorous coupledwave analysis (RCWA) algorithm as a function of the angular frequency and the emission angle. The results reveal that thermal emission from the microstructure can exhibit very novel feature compared to those previously studied. Especially, significantly enhanced thermal emission can be achieved in a broad spectral band due to excitation of surface photon polaritons (SPhPs), PC modes, magnetic polaritons (MPs) and the coupling between them. We show that it is possible to flexibly control the thermal emission feature by adjusting the microstructure's dimensional parameters properly.