Design Of A Broadband Metamaterial Absorber With Incident Angle Stability And Polarization Insensitivity For Solar Energy Application In The Visible Spectrum

The utilization of solar cells composed of ideal metamaterial presents an opportunity to enhance the system's efficiency through the efficient absorption of incident solar electromagnetic waves. In this paper, a broad-band metamaterial absorber (MA) built by a three-layer structure W-Polyimide-W was presented in order to accomplish this goal of optimum absorption across the whole visible spectrum. The structure has an average light trapping efficiency of 96.33% across the wavelength range of 390-788 nm. The MA exhibits polarization insensitivity and demonstrates high absorption efficiency across a wide range of incident angles. The absorber also shows great absorbance under the AM1.5 solar spectrum which is a standard solar spectrum used in terrestrial solar cell research. An analysis of the electric field and magnetic field was conducted to get insight into the absorption of the MA for the purpose of solar energy harvesting. Additionally, the absorber exhibits potential utility in integrated photodetectors, nano solar cells, imaging applications, sensors, light detectors, biochemical applications, and light-to-heat conversion.