Thermally driven sensitive surface phonon polariton modes in thin-film SiC

The results of this work show that significant changes to the spectral properties of thermal emission may be accomplished by taking advantage of surface phonon polariton (SPP) modes that are very sensitive to small refractive index changes. Surface phonon polaritons are interface restricted wave modes that do not usually participate in thermal radiative energy exchange. In this work, the possibility of varying the spectral properties by using a thin-film surface active material, layered between dielectrics, is explored. Unlike surface gratings, the multilayered structure discussed in this work couples the surface modes into radiative modes using subtle changes in refractive index. The proposed multilayer effect is studied by first developing the SPP mode dispersion relation to identify the spectral location of the surface modes. The relationship between SPP coupling and refractive index change is then developed. The fluctuation-dissipation theorem and an impedance boundary condition is used to theoretically show how thermal radiation can excite SPP modes. Results are then presented that show how film thickness and substrate properties act to support SPP modes that are particularly sensitive to changes in refractive index and therefore offers opportunities for dramatic changes to the spectral properties.