<p>The rectennas are used to collect infrared (IR) energy are essentially constrained by the complicated tradeoff between antenna-diode impedance matching and the nonlinear rectification efficiency of the diode. To optimize these interdependent parameters as a whole, this paper presents a Chaotic Adaptive Whale Optimization Algorithm (CA-WOA). The algorithm optimizes the product of the responsivity of the diode and antenna-diode coupling efficiency, which identifies the optimum material properties and geometry of metal–insulator-insulator–metal (MIIM) diode. A Ti–TiO₂/ZnO–Al diode is developed according to the output of the CA-WOA, through Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). The artificial diode is described and its parameters are determined, which confirmed the design methodology. The optimized rectenna has a high cutoff frequency of 33.86 THz, which indicated the effectiveness of the proposed CA-WOA framework in the development of high-performance IR energy harvesting systems.</p>