Simulation study of multi-layer titanium nitride nanodisk broadband solar absorber and thermal emitter

Abstract Solar energy has always been a kind of energy with large reserves and wide application. It is well utilized through solar absorbers. In our study, the finite difference time domain method (FDTD) is used to simulate the absorber composed of refractory metal materials, and its absorption performance and thermal emission performance are obtained. The ultra-wide band of 200 nm–3000 nm reaches 95.93% absorption efficiency, of which the bandwidth absorption efficiency of 2533 nm (200 nm–2733 nm) is greater than 90%. The absorption efficiency in the whole spectrum range (200 nm–2733 nm) is 97.17% on average. The multilayer nanodisk structure of the absorber allows it to undergo strong surface plasmon resonance and near-field coupling when irradiated by incident light. The thermal emission performance of the absorber enables it to also be applied to the thermal emitter. The thermal emission efficiency of 95.37% can be achieved at a high temperature of up to 1500 K. Moreover, the changes of polarization and incident angle do not cause significant changes in absorption. Under the gradual change of polarization angle (0°–90°), the absorption spectrum maintains a high degree of consistency. As the incident angle increases from 0° to 60°, there is still 85% absorption efficiency. The high absorption efficiency and excellent thermal radiation intensity of ultra-wideband enable it to be deeply used in energy absorption and conversion applications.