Ultra-Broadband Infrared Metamaterial Absorber for Passive Radiative Cooling

Infrared metamaterial absorber(MMA) based on metal-insulator-metal(MIM) configuration with flexible design,perfect and selective absorption,has attracted much attention recently for passive radiative cooling applications.To cool objects passively,broadband infrared absorption(i.e.8-14 μm) is desirable to emit thermal energy through atmosphere window.We present a novel MMA composed of multilayer MIM resonators periodically arranged on a PbTe/MgF_(2) bilayer substrate.Verified by the rigorous coup led-wave analysis method,the proposed MMA shows a relative bandwidth of about 45%(from 8.3 to 13.1 μm with the absorption intensity over 0.8).The broadband absorption performs stably over a wide incident angle range(below 50°) and predicts 12 K cooling below ambient temperature at nighttime.Compared with the previous passive radiative coolers,our design gets rid of the continuous metal substrate and provides an almost ideal transparency window(close to 100%)for millimeter waves over 1 mm.The structure is expected to have potential applications in thermal control of integrated devices,where millimeter wave signal compatibility is also required.