Research Article Vol. 5, No.

2 / February 2018 / Optica 175

Enhancing thermal radiation with nanoantennas to

create infrared sources with high modulation rates
EMILIE SAKAT,* LÉO WOJSZVZYK, JEAN-PAUL HUGONIN, MONDHER BESBES, CHRISTOPHE SAUVAN,
AND JEAN-JACQUES GREFFET
Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d’Optique Graduate School, CNRS, Université Paris Saclay, Palaiseau, France
*Corresponding author: emilie.sakat@institutoptique.fr

Received 9 October 2017; revised 28 November 2017; accepted 21 December 2017 (Doc. ID 308746); published 2 February 2018

In recent decades, researchers have demonstrated incandescent sources that exhibit monochromatic, directional, and
even fast modulated infrared emission. Most of the researchers achieve this type of emission by heating the whole
device. Here, we propose heating only nanovolumes that can be cooled in a few tens of nanoseconds. This approach
could enable high-speed modulation. To compensate for the weak thermal emission of such isolated nanoemitters, we
propose inserting the hot nanovolume in the gap of a cold nanoantenna. We calculate the resulting emission enhance-
ment by using a generalized version of Kirchhoff’s law, and demonstrate that careful design of the complete antenna–
nanoemitter system can result in emission enhancements of more than four orders of magnitude. © 2018 Optical
Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

OCIS codes: (140.3490) Lasers, distributed-feedback; (060.2420) Fibers, polarization-maintaining; (060.3735) Fiber Bragg gratings.

https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.5.000175

1. INTRODUCTION approach that consists of heating only nanoscale volumes whose

The control of the emission of incandescent sources in the infrared
is of great importance for various applications, such as energy con-
version [1–3], gas detection [4], or radiative cooling [5,6]. These
applications need to precisely tailor the spectrum, directivity, and
polarization of thermal emission. Such a control can only be ob-
tained by engineering the emissivity of the structure. In the last 15
years, several demonstrations have completely changed our perspec-
tive on what can be achieved with incandescent sources. Resonant
nanostructures allow control of the temporal coherence of the
source, thus obtaining the narrowband emission spectrum [7–11].
Taking advantage of the spatial coherence of surface waves, highly
directional sources have also been demonstrated [12–14]. A new
challenge in this area is the high-speed modulation of the flux emit-
ted by a thermal source [15]. Indeed, it would be particularly useful
for short-range communications applications, such as remote con-
trol or wireless LAN communication systems.
According to Kirchhoff ’s law, thermal emission is the product
of the absorptivity and the blackbody spectral radiance at the
working temperature. Modulation of thermal emission can thus
be obtained by dynamically tuning either the absorptivity of the
device [16–18] or its temperature [19]. Electrical modulation of
the emissivity of a stack of quantum wells has allowed the modu-
lation of thermal emission at a record rate of 600 kHz [18]. The
modulation speed, however, is limited by parasitic resistances and
capacitances in the semiconductor layers. The modulation of
thermal emission at a rate faster than a few hundred kilohertz
is a further challenge that has not yet been achieved. To reach
higher modulation speeds, we propose what we believe is a novel
cooling times can be extremely fast. Indeed, the thermal diffusion
time constant of an object of size h is proportional to h2 ∕D, with
D as the thermal diffusion coefficient. Hence, a cubic volume of
matter with a 100 nm size has a characteristic diffusion time in the
range of a few tens of nanoseconds—the diffusion coefficient
being on the order of 10−6 m2 · s−1 for most nonmetallic materi-
als. Such short thermal timescales should enable modulation
speeds as fast as a few tens of megahertz.
2. RESULTS
In contrast to previous works, the approach proposed in this paper
relies on the use of anisothermal structures where only the nano-
scale volumes are heated while the rest of the device remains at a
lower temperature. The usual Kirchhoff ’s law is established for
thermodynamic equilibrium and cannot predict the thermal
emission of complex structures composed of different parts at dif-
ferent temperatures. In this case, the theoretical study has to be
realized in the framework of a generalized version of Kirchhoff ’s
law. It is indeed possible to establish the equality between the local
emission rate in one specific direction, wavelength, and polariza-
tion and the local absorption rate for the same wavelength, polari-
zation, and direction for any finite-sized body with arbitrary
geometry [20,21]. In this generalized version of Kirchhoff ’s
law applied to an anisothermal structure where only a small part
is hot while the rest of the device is cold, the key physical quantity
is an absorption cross section. Since the temperature to be taken
into account is the temperature at the point of interest, we must
consider the absorption cross section associated with the hot

2334-2536/18/020175-05 Journal © 2018 Optical Society of America

 Research Article Vol. 5, No. 2 / February 2018 / Optica 176

nanovolume and not the cross section of the whole structure. It is (a)
given by
Z
ω
σ abs
u; ω  Im
εjEj2 d3 r; (1)
2P 0 V e
where ω is the frequency, P 0 is the norm of the Poynting vector of (b)
the incident plane wave, ε is the dielectric permittivity of the
material, E is the total electric field, and V e is the volume of in-
terest (i.e., the nanoscale volume that will be heated). We can
define the local absorption cross section as
ω Im
εjEj2
αabs
r; u; ω  : (2)
2P 0 Fig. 1. (a) Cubic nanoemitter of width wn inserted in the gap of a
dimer nanoantenna made of two gold nanorods and deposited on a sub-
The power emitted by the hot nanovolume V e is then given by strate of refractive index nsub  1.28. The nanorods have a length Lant
Z
and a square section wn × wn . (b) Near-field enhancement jEj∕jEinc j cal-
P e
u; ω  αabs
r; u; ωI B
ω; T
rd3 r; (3) culated for a normal incident plane wave with a polarization parallel to
Ve
the antenna axis for λ  13.24 μm, Lant  3.6 μm and wn  200 nm.
where I B
ω; T
r is the spectral radiance of a blackbody [20,21]. The nanoemitter is in SiNx [relative permittivity in Fig. 3(a)].
If we assume a constant temperature in the nanovolume V e ,
we obtain P e  σ abs I B
T . It shows that to increase the extrac-
tion of thermal power from a given object, one must increase its chooses the absorbing material alone with a permittivity that be-
absorption cross section. Therefore, in the following discussion, comes too high, the electric field inside the material is screened and
we focus on the calculation of σ abs given by Eq. (1). Hereafter, we the absorption cross section decreases. Conversely, one cannot
refer to the volume V e as the nanoemitter. choose the nanoantenna alone without considering the nanoemit-
Absorption by deeply subwavelength and isolated objects is ter. An impedance-matching condition must be fulfilled to maxi-
extremely weak. For instance, the absorption cross section at λ  mize the power transfer between the nanoantenna and the
10 μm of a small cube of silicon nitride with a 200 nm side is on nanoemitter [25,26]. For the nanoemitter material, we have chosen
the order of 0.01 μm2 (i.e., only 25 percent of its geometrical to exploit the phonon resonance in the SiNx , which is situated in
surface). To take advantage of the short thermal timescales offered the targeted 8–14 μm wavelength range, as shown in Fig. 3(a).
by small objects, we must significantly increase the absorption in a Figure 1(b) highlights the field enhancement jEj∕jEinc j in the
given object whose typical size is on the order of 100 nm. In prin- SiNx nanoemitter with a size of 200 nm. Calculations have been
ciple, the maximum absorption cross section for a small object realized with the aperiodic Fourier modal method (a-FMM) [27]
behaving as a pure electric dipole is 3λ2 ∕
8π  12 μm2 at at λ  13.24 μm for a plane wave with a normal incidence and a
λ  10 μm. However, reaching this upper bound with a sub- polarization parallel to the antenna axis. The refractive index of
wavelength nanosphere with a polarizability given by the quasi- gold has been taken from [28]. The antenna length is Lant 
static limit requires the use of a material with a relative 3.6 μm and corresponds to the length that maximizes the absorp-
permittivity close to −2. In practice, obtaining an absorption cross tion cross section, as shown in Fig. 2, which shows the absorption
section of 3λ2 ∕
8π at λ  10 μm with a sphere of radius cross section of the SiNx nanoemitter as a function of the antenna
100 nm in air requires filling the nanosphere with a relative per- length and wavelength. The blue cross indicates the maximum of
mittivity equal to −2.0095  0.0005i. Such a precise value is the absorption cross section σ abs  14.21 μm2 for a wavelength
impossible to find with realistic materials. It has been shown re- of 13.24 μm and an antenna length of 3.6 μm. Figure 3(b) shows
cently that absorption cross sections close to 3λ2 ∕
8π or even the absorption cross section spectrum obtained for the optimum
larger can be obtained with realistic materials [22], but with big-
ger objects that do not behave as pure electric dipoles and have
longer thermal timescales.
To enhance the power extraction from a small emitter, it has
been shown that one can use a hemisphere with large refractive
index n [23]. The enhancement is limited by a factor n2. Here, we
propose to insert the nanoemitter in the gap of a dimer nanoan-
tenna made of two gold nanorods on a substrate, as shown in
Fig. 1. Enhancement of the absorption assisted by a nanoantenna
has already been used for bolometers [24]. To optimize the ab-
sorption cross section of the nanoemitter in the presence of the
antenna in the mid-infrared wavelength range, one has to care-
fully choose both the material composing the emitter and the an-
tenna geometry. According to Eq. (1), it appears that the electric Fig. 2. Absorption cross section of a cubic SiNx nanoemitter with
field in the nanoemitter and the imaginary part of the permittivity wn  200 nm inserted in the gap of a dimer nanoantenna as a function
must be as large as possible to maximize the absorption cross sec- of the wavelength and the antenna length. Calculations are performed
tion. However, maximizing these two quantities independently is at normal incidence with a polarization parallel to the antenna axis.
counterproductive because they are highly correlated. If one The cross shows the location of the maximum.
 Research Article
antenna length Lant  3.6 μm. The dashed red curve displays the
cross section calculated without the antenna; the data have been
multiplied by a factor 100 for a better visibility. The presence of
the nanoantenna leads to an enhancement by more than four
orders of magnitude. The maximum of the ratio between the cross
sections with and without the antenna is as high as 11600 at
λ  14.64 μm, as shown in Fig. 3(c). Note that the ratio of these
cross sections integrated over the wavelength range 8–20 μm
(effective emissivity) is equal to 2480. This result demonstrates
the capability of the antenna to enhance the weak absorption
(and thus the thermal emission) of the nanoemitter.
The absorption cross section spectrum in Fig. 3(b) is very broad
and presents two different peaks, whereas the dimer nanoantenna
should support a single mode in this spectral range. To understand
this feature, we have calculated the average field enhancement in-
side the nanoemitter. It is represented in Fig. 4 as a function of the
wavelength and the length of the antenna. Note that, since the field
is almost constant within the volume of the nanoemitter as shown
in Fig. 1(b), we have calculated the average field from the cross
section as jEav j2  2P 0 σ abs ∕
ω Im
εV e . Two resonances can
be observed: a first one around λ  9 μm, which varies weakly
with the antenna length; and a second one, at larger wavelengths,
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 3. (a) Real (solid curve) and imaginary part (red dashed curve) of
the relative permittivity of silicon nitride SiNx as a function of the wave-
length. (b) Absorption cross section of the 200 nm side SiNx nanoemitter
alone (red dashed curve; data have been multiplied by 100 for better
visibility) or inserted in the gap of the optimal dimer nanoantenna with
Lant  3.6 μm (solid curve). Calculations are performed at normal inci-
dence with a polarization parallel to the antenna axis. (c) Enhancement
factor defined as the ratio of the cross section of the SiNx nanoemitter
with and without antenna.
Vol. 5, No. 2 / February 2018 / Optica 177
that strongly depends on the antenna length. These resonances
arise from the presence of two modes in the whole system
nanoantenna–nanoemitter. We have calculated the eigenfrequen-
cies of these two modes as a function of the antenna length by
looking for the poles of the scattering matrix in the complex fre-
quency plane [29]. The corresponding wavelengths are superim-
posed in Fig. 4 with dashed blue lines. They can be attributed
to one mode intrinsic to the SiNx nanoemitter and one mode
of the nanoantenna that are coupled. Our calculations reveal a
strong coupling behavior; see Fig. 4, which shows the clear anti-
crossing between the dashed lines. We have checked that the line-
widths of the modes are smaller than the splitting between the
eigenfrequencies. The nanoantenna resonance red-shifts when
the antenna length increases, as expected from the bounding dipole
mode of the dimer. For the resonance of the nanoemitter, it appears
that the field enhancement spectrum inside the nanoemitter alone
(i.e., without nanoantenna) exhibits a resonance at λ  9.2 μm
(spectrum not shown here). This wavelength corresponds to
the cancellation of the real part of the SiNx permittivity; the
nanoemitter resonance is thus an epsilon-near-zero resonance
[16,30,31]. The presence of the two resonances explains the broad
absorption spectra visible on Figs. 2 and 3(b). Indeed, σ abs is the
product of the field enhancement of Fig. 4 and the imaginary part
of the SiNx permittivity plotted on Fig. 3(a) (red dashed curve).
Finally, we describe an example of the implementation of a fast
and local heating of the nanoemitter and also provide a full ther-
mal study of the corresponding system. The heating system con-
sists of a metallic wire with a varying width, as shown in Fig. 5(a).
The width is narrower below the nanoemitter so that the electric
resistance locally increases, allowing it to dissipate heat by Joule
effect at this precise location. We have performed numerical sim-
ulations with the finite element method to evaluate the temper-
ature profile along the antenna axis x as a function of time. After a
voltage is applied during 6 ns, the system should be allowed to
relax and cool down. This duration is twice the diffusion time
(w2n ∕D  3 ns) in the nanoemitter and has been chosen to ensure
uniform heating of the nanoemitter. Figure 5(b) shows that dur-
ing such a short heating time only the emitter is significantly
heated. With the injected electrical power, the temperature
inside the nanoemitter reaches 550 K after 6 ns. This maximal
temperature could be increased with an higher voltage. On the con-
trary, the nanoantenna is still cold. In fact, the temperature of the
antenna increases only very close to the nanoemitter. The system
Fig. 4. Average field enhancement jEav j2 ∕jEinc j2 inside the SiNx nano-
emitter inserted in the gap of the dimer antenna as a function of the
wavelength and the length of the antenna Lant . The average field has been
calculated as jEav j2  2P 0 σ abs ∕
ω Im
εV e .
 Research Article
(a)
(b)
Fig. 5. (a) Scheme of an exemple of implementation of an electrical
heating system. (b) Time dependent temperature profile T
x; z  wn ; t
along the x axis as a function of time for a bias ΔU  2 V applied during
6 ns. After t  6 ns, the system cools down. The nanoemitter is located
in the center of the picture and is surrounded by the dimer antenna.
(More details on the calculations can be found in Supplement 1.)
then cools with a similar duration (6 ns) since both heating
and cooling timescales are driven by diffusion. Numerical simula-
tions thus confirm the possibility to reach modulation rates above
tens of MHz. The details on the thermal calculations can be
found in Supplement 1. We have checked that the addition of
small metallic wires dedicated to heating does not affect the optical
performances.
3. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we have theoretically demonstrated a thermal emis-
sion enhancement for a SiNx nanoemitter higher than four orders
of magnitude, thanks to a carefully designed dimer nanoantenna.
This result opens the way to the realization of arrays of nanoemit-
ters that could be heated locally and inserted in the gap of cold
resonant nanoantennas, allowing a high modulation rate together
with an enhanced thermal emission. Moreover, various kinds of
nanoantennas can be placed on the metasurface, which allows
the active tuning of the emission of the nanoemitter in directivity,
wavelength, and polarization by specifically heating the emitters
related to one antenna or the other. This approach will enable
the design of cheap, compact and dynamic IR sources.
Funding. Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA).
Acknowledgment. The authors thank F. Marquier for
helpful discussion. Author Léo Wojszvzyk is grateful to the
DGA for Ph.D. funding.
See Supplement 1 for supporting content.
Vol. 5, No. 2 / February 2018 / Optica 178
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