Impacts of Nanoscale Features on Infrared Radiative Properties of Metallic Slit Arrays

Radiative properties (absorptance, reflectance, and transmittance) of deep slits with five nanoscale slit profile variations at the transverse magnetic wave incidence are numerically investigated in this work by employing the rigorous coupled-wave analysis. For slits with attached features, their radiative properties can be much different due to the modified cavity geometry and dangled structures, even at wavelengths between 3 and 15 μm. The shifts of cavity resonance excitation result in higher transmittance through narrower slits at specific wavelengths and resonance modes are confirmed with the electromagnetic fields. Opposite roles possibly played by features in increasing or decreasing absorptance are determined by the feature position and demonstrated by Poynting vectors. Correlations among all properties of a representative slit array, the angle of incidence, and the slit density are also comprehensively studied.