Analysis and combination of different approaches for selective and directional thermal emission

There are many concepts providing narrowband and highly directional mid-infrared (mid-IR) thermal emission for integrated senor applications. In this contribution, we simulate the combination of two different concepts, each featuring individual signatures with respect to emission properties. The first concept is composed of an aperiodic multilayer stack of alternating dielectric layers (Si and SiO2) deposited on a planar metallic surface acting as heater ([1,2]). The dielectric double-layers either have quarter-wavelength (QW) thickness forming a Bragg mirror. This is followed by a half-wavelength (HW) cavity-layer of SiO2 on top of a silver surface. The second concept is based on a structured silver surface, which utilizes the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) to gain the desired emission enhancement at the target wavelength ([3]). The very high coherence of the SPPs results in an extremely narrowband and directional emission. However, unwanted emission modes from SPP overtones can be a significant downside of this concept. We simulate and discuss the possibility of a combination of both concepts, which has the potential of keeping selective and high intensity emission properties without unwanted adjacent emission bands.