Jerusalem Cross Metamaterial-Based Nano-engineered Plasmonic Solar Absorber with Polarization Insensitivity and Ultrawideband Performance

Broadband perfect absorbers based on nanostructures have high potential applications in thermal photonics, energy harvesting, spectroscopy, and other fields. Here, a nickel (Ni) planar Jerusalem cross with the capacity to absorb a wide operational wavelength ranging from 400 to 6000 nm is presented. The top and bottom metal layers of the presented device model are made of nickel. In contrast, the middle dielectric layer is made of aluminium nitride (AlN). Over a wide wavelength range of 400–6000 nm, the developed metamaterial-based Jerusalem cross absorber (JCA) may achieve an average absorption value of more than 85%. Furthermore, for both wave polarization cases (TE and TM), it may retain its absorption value up to 70% at oblique incident angles. Additionally, it displays the polarization-insensitive absorption response to varying polarization angles, which it attributes to the Jerusalem cross four-fold symmetry in its geometry. Furthermore, the simpler design structure of our JCA lowers the fabrication costs and complexity. The presented JCA’s promising properties could be used extensively in thermal emission, solar energy harvesting, and other optoelectronic devices.