Nathan PINHAS, Mark AUSLENDER, and Shlomo HAVA^*

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

(Received January 30, 2007; Accepted August 27, 2007)

Experimental and theoretical study of thermal emission, transmission, and reflection from bare and coated one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) grating structures on GaAs substrates was carried out. Our experiments have revealed strong correlation between the spectra of thermal emission and the microstructure dimensions. The emissivity enhancement and diminution depends on the groove depth and the spectral range (below or above Rayleigh wavelength). The effects can be attributed to diverse mechanisms: emission escape due to emerging diffraction-order beams, vertical-cavity modes, enhanced optical transmission phenomenon, and electron plasma effect.

Key words: thermal emission, gratings, infrared, microstructures

^*E-mail address: hava@ee.bgu.ac.il