Effect of magnetic polaritons on the radiative properties of inclined plate arrays

This study investigates the spectral radiative properties of inclined parallel-plate arrays with emphasis on the effect of magnetic polaritons. The rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) is employed and the geometry of parallel-plate arrays is reproduced by considering the structure as a multilayered grating with lateral shift. Enhanced absorption at specific wavelengths with angular independence due to the excitation of magnetic resonances is demonstrated with the numerical calculation. The magnetic resonance condition can be simply predicted by a modified capacitor-inductor (LC) model, and electromagnetic field distributions are presented to illustrate the unique behavior of magnetic polaritons such as field localization and induced currents. The agreement between the RCWA and LC model on the resonance conditions confirms the excitation of magnetic polaritons. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the geometric effects on the radiative properties. It is shown that the resonance wavelengths of magnetic polaritons can be tuned by changing the plate length, thickness, period, or inclination angle. The understanding gained from this study may benefit the design of energy harvesting devices. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.