Infra-red nano-antennas for solar energy collection

In this paper, three nano-antennas have been designed: Dipole, Spiral, and Bow-tie infra-red (IR) antennas for solar energy collection. A performance comparison between these designs is presented to find the optimum solution to this application. The main goal of this study is to design and optimize nano-antennas for maximum solar and earth radiation energy conversion in the mid-IR region. The nano-antennas are simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics based on Finite element Method (FEM). The results demonstrate that the converted electric field in spiral nano-antennas is larger than that in bow-tie and dipole nano-antennas. Furthermore, it is shown that the bow-tie nano-antenna exhibits a wider bandwidth when compared to the other types and that its electric field can be enhanced by coupling more bow-tie elements to form an array.