Deterministic Inverse Design of Lithography-Free, Wavelength-Selective Tamm Plasmon Thermal Emitters

Abstract Wavelength-selective thermal emitters (WS-EMs) are of high interest due to the lack of cost-effective, narrow-band light sources in the mid- to long-wave infrared. Cost-effective WS-EMs can be realized via Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP) structures supported by distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) on metal layers, however, optimizing TPP-WS-EMs is challenging because of the large number of parameters to optimize. To address this challenge, we use stochastic gradient descent (SGD) to optimize TPP-WS-EMs composed of an aperiodic DBR deposited on doped cadmium oxide (CdO) plasmonic films. While the SGD-optimized, aperiodic DBR offers extensive spectral control, the material choice, i.e., plasma-frequency-tunable doped CdO, enables the design capabilities not accessible with noble metals. Here, the individual layer thickness and carrier density of CdO are optimized by our SGD inverse design strategy. The resultant experimental designs demonstrate TPP-WS-EMs exhibiting isolated, high-Q (narrow bandwidth), and structures featuring multiple emission bands for applications such as free-space communications and gas sensing. Furthermore, we illustrate the deterministic design capability within the infrared, such as user-designated Q-factors (28 − 10,127) at a desired frequency, multi-band emitters with user-defined Q, and the ability to directly match arbitrary chemical absorption spectra. Thus, the combination of our SGD inverse design and the broadly tunable plasma frequency of CdO enables lithography-free, CMOS-compatible, and wafer-scale solutions for WS-EMs with unprecedented spectral control.