Effect of Mo Layer Thickness on Bandwidth Tunability and Absorption Properties of Planar Ultra-Wideband Optical Absorbers

This study utilizes COMSOL Multiphysics (version 6.0) to design a planar ultra-broadband optical absorber with a multilayer configuration. The proposed structure consists of seven stacked layers arranged from bottom to top: W (h1, acting as a reflective substrate and transmission blocker), WSe2 (h2), SiO2 (h3), Ni (h4), SiO2 (h5), Mo (h6), and SiO2 (h7). One key finding of this study is that, when all other layer thicknesses are fixed, variations in the Mo layer thickness systematically induce a redshift in both the short- and long-wavelength cutoff edges. Notably, the long-wavelength cutoff exhibits a larger shift than the short-wavelength edge, resulting in an increased absorption bandwidth where absorptivity remains above 0.900. The second contribution is the demonstration that this planar structure can be readily engineered to achieve ultra-broadband absorption, spanning from the near-ultraviolet and visible region (360 nm) to the mid-infrared (6300 nm). An important characteristic of the proposed design is that the thickness of the h7 SiO2 layer influences the cutoff wavelength at the short-wavelength edge, while the thickness of the h6 Mo layer governs the cutoff position at the long-wavelength edge. This dual modulation capability allows the proposed optical absorber to flexibly tune both the spectral range and the bandwidth in which absorptivity exceeds 0.900, thereby enabling the realization of a wavelength- and bandwidth-tunable optical absorber.