Enhancement of Thermal Radiation in Plasmonic Thermal Emitter by Surface Plasmon Resonance

The emission spectra of Ag/Si02/Ag tri-layer plasmonic thermal emitters were investigated. It is demonstrated that the top silver film perforated with periodic hole arrays plays a role to amplify the thermal emission in the emitter at a specific wavelength determined by the surface plasmon. Obviously the amplification of the thermal radiation is independent of lattices. The amplification of thermal radiation at specific wavelength was induced by the strong surface plasmon resonance. In addition, it provides a useful tool to be applied in the area of gas sensing and probing the response of cells and plants to the infrared radiation. Furthermore, the emittance spectra with decreasing sized holes were measured and the peak position red shift was observed, the result was attributed to the variation of effective refractive index.