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This work both numerically and experimentally investigates the reflectance from the smooth side of a semi-transparent 508-µm-thick window with metallic gratings attached on the other side. The incident light is oblique and linearly polarized, and its wavelength ranges from 2.5 to 25 µm. Three gratings with various levels of profile complexity and periods are investigated. Influences from the intrinsic material absorption, light refraction, total internal reflection, interference, and diffraction on both the specular and hemispherical reflectance are studied. Moreover, the applicability of effective medium theory to our samples is verified.

Triple mechanisms were employed to trap mid-infrared (mid-IR) rays within a semi-transparent SiO(2) film sandwiched between gold gratings and a gold substrate. Dimensions of four absorbers were explicitly determined using an LC (inductor-capacitor) circuit model considering the role transition of SiO(2) film. The film behaves as a capacitance and an inductance when the real part of relative electric permittivity for SiO(2) is positive and negative, respectively. At the normal incidence of transverse magnetic waves, every absorptance spectrum of absorbers showed a peak at wavelength λ = 10 μm due to the first mode excitation of magnetic polaritons (MP). At oblique incidence, the Berreman mode led to another peak at λ = 8 μm while its bandwidth was expanded with epsilon near zero mode excited by diffracted waves. The full-width-at-half-maximum of both peaks exceeded 0.6 μm thanks to the SiO(2) loss. Other minor absorptance peaks in the mid-IR were caused by variants of the same MP mode.

A wavelength-selective but polarization-insensitive thermophotovoltaic emitter was numerically developed with a binary tungsten grating and its appealing emittance spectra were demonstrated with analysis. Ranges of emitter dimensions were preliminarily confined with the excitation of the surface plasmon polariton, cavity resonance, and Wood's anomaly at specified wavelengths. Then, a hybrid scheme (the rigorous coupled wave analysis together with a genetic algorithm) was able to finely tailor the grating profile such that emittance could be significantly enhanced in the near infrared region. The peak emittance at the transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarizations was 0.997 and 0.935, respectively. The emittance was actually almost twice that from a plain tungsten plate at short wavelengths but significantly reduced at long wavelengths. Moreover, such spectral emittance is insensitive to the polarization and 5% dimension modification, making the emitter ideal for thermophotovoltaic applications. Patterns of electromagnetic fields and Poynting vectors were able to confirm the excitation of physical mechanisms.

This work numerically investigates optical responses (absorptance, reflectance, and transmittance) of deep slits with five nanoscale slit profile variations at the transverse magnetic wave incidence by employing the rigorous coupled-wave analysis. For slits with attached features, their optical responses can be much different due to the modified cavity geometry and dangled structures, even at wavelengths between 3 and 15 microm. 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 responses of a representative slit array, the angle of incidence, and the slit density are also comprehensively studied. When multiple slit types coexist in an array (complex slits), a wide-band transmittance or absorptance enhancement is feasible by merging spectral peaks contributed from each type of slits distinctively. Discrepancy among infrared optical responses of four selected slit combinations is explained while effects of slit density are also discussed.

This study employed the optical responses of periodic structures, multiple-variable functions with sufficient complexity, to develop a cryptographic scheme. The characteristics of structures could be delivered easily with the ciphertext, a series of numbers containing plaintext messages. Two optimization methods utilizing a genetic algorithm were adopted to generate the periodic structure profile as a critical encryption/decryption key. The robustness of methods was further confirmed under various limits. The ciphertext could only be decrypted by referring to the codebook after acquiring the pre-determined optical response. The confidentiality and large capacity of the scheme revealed the enhanced coding strategies here while the success of the scheme was demonstrated with the delivery of an example message.

Biomedical and chemical sensors utilizing surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in the mid-infrared range were developed with the aid of highly doped silicon owing to its tailored optical constants. SPR may be excited by light incident on a periodic doping profile embedded in an intrinsic silicon film without constraints on the flow of chemical solutions or activities of biomedical samples. General guidance for tuning SPR wavelengths based on dispersion curves to catch different target materials in free space or water was also provided. The feasibility of sensors was demonstrated with a sharp spectral-directional reflectance dip, which shifted with optical constants variation. The effects of doping concentration, doping profile, and angle of incidence on sensor performance were numerically studied with a rigorous coupled-wave analysis algorithm. Developed sensors could work well for a real target and show superiority in sensitivity over existing sensors.