Silicon photonic crystal thermal emitter at near-infrared wavelengths

Abstract

Controlling thermal emission with resonant photonic nanostructures has recently attracted much attention. Most of the work has concentrated on the mid-infrared wavelength range and/or was based on metallic nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate the experimental operation of a resonant thermal emitter operating in the near-infrared (≈1.5 μm) wavelength range. The emitter is based on a doped silicon photonic crystal consisting of a two dimensional square array of holes and using silicon-on-insulator technology with a device-layer thickness of 220 nm. The device is resistively heated by passing current through the photonic crystal membrane. At a temperature of ≈1100 K, we observe relatively sharp emission peaks with a Q factor around 18. A support structure system is implemented in order to achieve a large area suspended photonic crystal thermal emitter and electrical injection. The device demonstrates that weak absorption together with photonic resonances can be used as a wavelength-selection mechanism for thermal emitters, both for the enhancement and the suppression of emission.