Sharp thermal emission and absorption from conformally coated metallic photonic crystal with triangular lattice

A metallic photonic crystal consisting of a triangular lattice of holes in a silicon layer coated with gold is fabricated at a lattice pitch of 3.75 mu m using conventional lithographic methods. The photonic crystal exhibits a deep reflection minimum and sharp thermal emission peak near the lattice spacing. Scattering matrix simulations agree well with measurements. This simple structure with a single patterned metallic layer has no emission sidebands and can be scaled to other lattice spacings to tune the wavelength of the absorption and emission peak. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.