Selective thermal emission from a patterned metalized plastic

•Coupled resonant cavities were fabricated in a metalized plastic substrate.•Design optimization included a metal deposition profile model, allowing tuning.•Initial structure under-imprinting allowed extended metal deposition thicknesses.•Substrate surface curvature limited thermal emission directivity.

A high-throughput hot-embossing and metal-deposition fabrication process based on compact-disc manufacturing has been employed to produce Coupled Resonant Cavity (CRC) structures for directionally and spectrally selective thermal emission at infrared wavelengths. The CRC structures were fabricated by hot embossing poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrates, over which a layer of aluminum (Al) was deposited to support surface plasmons. The thermal emission behavior of the structures was predicted by Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA) of deposited metal profiles determined by the Blech model. It is shown that CRC structures which are initially under-imprinted may be brought to a resonant condition by increasing the metal deposition thickness, which is desirable for improving the thermal and mechanical properties of the structures. The primary source of deviation between the modeled and measured results was associated with surface curvature induced in the substrates during the fabrication process.