Nano-Antenna Arrays for the Infrared Regime

Infrared detectors for the long-wave infrared range (LWIR) are of special interest due to their ability to detect black-body radiation of objects at room temperature. Such detectors are attractive candidates for various applications including energy harvesting, target tracking, and thermal imaging, but their applications to communication systems have been largely unexplored. In this paper, we combine our previous work on antenna-coupled thermocouples with a new approach to near-field-coupled nano-antennas, which might open up the possibility of obtaining carrier phase after envelope demodulation.