SOLAR NANOANTENNA :

DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

FOR DARK FREQUENCY

BY- Anusree Balakrishnan

Roll no- 14401009
Class –S7 ECE

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INTRODUCTION

• Solar energy, which represents the largest energy

flow that enters the atmosphere ,reaches the earth in
both visible and infrared regions.
• Part of this energy is absorbed by atmospheric gases
and re-radiated to the earth’s surface in the mid-
infrared and far-infrared regions. Other parts of this
energy is absorbed by the surface or organic life and
re-radiated .
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• The power density of the solar radiation that reach
the Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 1350 W/m2
over a wide spectrum. This spectrum can be classified
into: ultraviolet radiation (λ < 400 nm) of which the
content is less than 9%; visible light (400 nm < λ < 700
nm) where the content is approximately 39%;and the
remaining 52% consisting of infrared (IR).
• But today’s technology finds its work significant only
in visible spectrum and hence rest of the energy acts
as dross.
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• Nanoantenna's have been suggested to replace the
solar cells by embedding an appropriate rectifier in
the feed gap of the antenna forming a rectifying
antenna (rectenna) using the wave nature of light,
where they exhibit higher efficiency(theoretically
100%) compared to the current solar cells.
• The structure and the operation theory of the solar
nanoantenna's is presented here.

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Photovoltaic cells and limitations
• It’s a direct conversion of solar energy into
electricity .When photon of sufficient energy falls on
it, it generates electron-hole pair which is separated
by junction potential and hence begets a DC output.
• Limitations of PVs panel:
1. The requirement of PV cell is a direct hit of solar
radiations for higher efficiency, which is not possible
continuously throughout a day daily. During Rainy and
winter season, its efficiency is low or sometimes
negligible. It’s of no use at night.
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2) For higher efficiency, it requires Solar Tracker, which
transpires the complexity dealing with the mechanical
parts and is also not cost effective.
3) Today’s technology gives abortive results to utilize
full solar spectrum coming to earth as this solar
panel(PV) works mainly in visible region.
4) When photon of higher energy (greater than band
gap energy) falls on solar panels, it generates heat
instead of electricity which is the result of lattice
vibration ,especially known as “Phonon” .
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Solar Rectenna Structure and Theory of
Operation

Block diagram of solar rectenna

• When Electromagnetic radiation of resonating
frequency (in range of THz) is incident on nanoantenna,
it induces cyclic plasma movement of free electrons,
which results in alternating current of resonating
frequency. Generated current flows towards the
feeding point.
• Induced current is in alternating nature with terahertz
frequency, which needs to be rectified. For
rectification ,diodes of higher frequency are required
but commercially available semiconductor devices fail
to operate at such high frequency without significant
losses.
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• Hence a special type of diode like Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM)
diode.
• The low pass filter between the antenna and the
rectifier (diode) prevents the re-radiation of higher
harmonics generated from rectification process by the
non-linear diode ,where its re-radiation could result in
power losses. In addition, this filter matches the
impedance between the antenna and the subsequent
circuitry.
• The DC bypass filter is necessary to smooth the
rectified signal to DC and pass it to the load.
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Nanoantenna: from RF to Optical
frequencies
• The propagation of light is usually controlled using mirrors,
lenses or diffraction elements .However ,these techniques
are not able to confine the light in an area smaller than half
wavelength due to diffraction limit.
• For visible light, the wavelength lies between about 390 to
700 nm, which makes the diffraction limit roughly between
180 to 350 nm. This scale is too far from the interest of
current nanotechnologies .The need for localizing and
confining the light beyond the diffraction limit and to control
optical fields at nanometer scale has led to the emergence of
nanoantennas.
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• The advances in nanotechnology and nanoscience provided
a great opportunity to fabricate and develop nanoantennas
in the scale below 100 nm using nanofabrication tools such
as E-beam lithography and focused ion beam milling. In
order for nanoantennas to interact efficiently with light ,their
dimensions need to be in the order of the wavelength of
incident light wave.
• The performance of nanoantennas depends strongly on the
material and the shape. They can take unusual shapes that
do not exist in conventional RF antennas, where the tips and
the particles play a critical role in shaping the properties of
nanoantennas due to the surface plasmon resonance.

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Surface plasmon resonance
•There are various differences in radiation mechanism
between nanoantennas and conventional RF antennas.
•One of them is the ability of nanoantennas to confine
the fields in the feed gap, tips and around the
structure, and furthermore, these fields decay when
we move away from the structure. The strength of
these confined fields depends on the shape ,material
and dielectric background of nanoantenna.

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• The concentration of local fields in nanoantennas
occurs due to the surface plasmon resonance or what
so called localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR).
Surface plasmons are highly confined fields made by
electrons oscillation at the metal/dielectric interface in
nanoantennas.
• When a metallic nano-particle is illuminated by light
(non-propagating excitation), surface plasmons will be
coupled with the photons of incident light. This
coupling results in charge oscillation in the visible and
infrared regimes depending on the metal used.
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Nanoantenna design consideration and
Fabrication
• The performance of the nanoantennas is measured in terms
of the captured electric field at the feed gap.
Material choice
• There exists a significant difference between material
properties at RF and optics. In the RF region, metals are
considered as perfect electrical conductors, however, in the
case of nano-scale antennas operating at the optical and IR
regimes, metals no longer behave as perfect conductors.
They exhibit lower conductivity (particularly at optical
frequencies) and have frequency-dependent dielectric
properties. 14
• Several noble metals have been considered in recent
nanoantenna designs such as gold, silver, Nickel and
Aluminium at both visible and IR wavelengths.
Configuration
• The research on nanoatennas started with investigating the
light scattering from single nanoparticles then developed and
extended to couple two particles in an antenna array form.
The structures include dipoles , bowties , square spirals
,Archimedean spirals , loops and dimers or disk.
• In some cases ,more than two elements have been coupled
together in one single antenna to increase the localised field
into the antenna feed gap.
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Fabrication

•As working of nanoantenna and efficiency has its dependency

on precise structure, dimension and specific material; reliable
fabrication with fine resolution is required.
•Various top-down and bottom-up approaches have been
applied experimentally to realize nanoantenna.
• Electron-beam lithography (EBL) has been used here which
is capable of fabricating large arrays of nearly identical
nanostructures with well-defined dimensions.

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Different antennas used
We have presented the design of nanoantenna with
resonating wavelength 13um. FEM simulation method has
been used on the following antennas.

Square spiral nanoantenna

•Spiral antennas are good resonators that can capture a large
energy at resonance. The square spiral nanoantenna
illustrated ,is designed for solar energy harvesting application.
•The square spiral nanoantenna in this study has 6 arms with
an arm width of 50 nm and a gap of 50 nm, and overall
dimensions of (1.25μm × 1.25μm).
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• The performance of this type of antenna can be enhanced by
increasing the number of arms which in turn increases its
aperture area that plays a significant role in the gain of the
antenna.
• However, the problem with this type is the difficulty in
configuring an array by connecting many elements by their
feed gaps. The main aim of the array is to combine the
captured electric field from each of its element, whereas in
this case the arms will prevent embedding feeding lines due
to overlapping.

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 Bowtie nanoantenna
•A bowtie antenna consists of two triangles facing each other
from their apices with a suitable gap to form a dipole
configuration.
•The performance of nano-gap bowtie antennas depends on many
geometrical parameters, including bowtie size, apex angle, and
gap size.
• The electric field is typically concentrated at the gap of the
bowtie antenna due to the Coulomb field, and the gap will act as a
capacitor . Thus, for particles in the vicinity (i.e. a short gap) one
can expect to obtain an electric field in the gap larger than that of
isolated particles. The bowtie is a linearly polarized antenna and
has broad beam perpendicular to the plane of radiation.

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• The configuration gives the designer the freedom to vary
several antenna parameters in order to increase the
captured electric field in the gap, which is a key factor in this
application.
• These parameters include the gap size, apex angle, and
antenna dimensions.
• Another advantage of bowtie nanoantennas is the ability of
building an array by coupling many bowtie elements in one
configuration and combining the electric field from each
element at the array feeding point, where a rectifier can be
embedded. The electric field is concentrated in the gap of
the bowtie nanoantenna.
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Increasing The Near-field Enhancement
By Coupling More Antenna Elements
• In the single-element case, the captured signal is often not
sufficient to drive the rectifier. Thus, it is necessary to increase
the gain of the receiving antenna by increasing its electrical
size.
• This can be accomplished by assembling the single-element
antennas in an electrical and geometrical configuration, which
is referred to as an array.
• The total field captured by the array is determined by the
vector addition of the fields captured by the individual
elements. This assumes that the fields from the elements of
the array interfere constructively. 25
Square spiral nano-array
•Three gold-based square spiral nano-antennas have been
designed to resonate near 13 μm. The first design comprises a
single spiral element while in the second design, two spiral
elements have been coupled together in one structure
feeding line. And the third one shows four spiral elements
coupled together in one single array with one common gap.
•The four-element array has the largest value of the captured
electric field compared with the two-element and the single
spiral nano-antennas , whereas the latter has the lowest
value.

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Bowtie nano-array
•A 2×2 bowtie nano-array is designed to increase the captured
electric field. This array is constructed by four bowties with no
gap between the bowtie’s triangles, and 60 nm feeding lines
are used to collect the electric field from the feed gap of the
array elements.
•This design, although simple, offers a higher electric field
than that of a single element antenna. The dimensions of this
array are 3.6×3.6 μm with a feeding gap size of 60 nm and the
metal area is 3.36 μm2.

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MIM Diode
• MIM diode is a thin film device consists of a few nano-meters
thin insulator layer sandwiched between two metal
electrodes. The rectification process happens based on the
concept of electron tunneling through a barrier (insulator
layer) .
• In designing MIM diodes, and in order to make them work
properly, certain conditions need to be fulfilled. These
conditions are:
1) The insulator layer should be thin, in order of few
nanometers, to ensure the occurrence of the tunneling effect.

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 2) The behavior of the I-V characteristics should be
asymmetric. This can be obtained by using different metals on
both sides of the insulator layer with large work function
difference between them.
3) Low resistance to provide good impedance matching
between the diode and the antenna .
•The equivalent circuit of the antenna-coupled MIM diode can
be described as a fixed resistance r connected in series with a
non-linear resistance RD and this combination is in parallel
with the diode capacitance CD .

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• The antenna can be represented by a voltage source VIR with
a series resistance Ra.
• The electric field has been integrated for different
wavelengths along the overlapping area to find the extracted
voltage that is supposed to be applied at the input of the
MIM diode for rectification to DC power.

The equivalent circuit of the antenna-coupled MIM diode

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Conclusion
• In this paper, simulated results of single and array of
nanoantenna were discussed.
• Numerous research works are carried out on energy
harvesting techniques.
• Today’s Photovoltaic (PV) cell fails to capitalize full spectrum
of solar energy and visualization of solar nanoantennas as
future replacement seems to be a standstill project.
• Currently research is on the way to manufacture
nanoantennas in low cost and efficient enough on flexible
substrates like polyethylene.
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Future scope

• Employ different materials to optimise the performance of

nanoantennas.
• Use different types of antennas and compare the results
with the current geometries to find the optimum solution for
this application.
• Increase the number of elements in each single array to
maximise the captured energy.

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THANK YOU

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