Coherent thermal emission from modified periodic multilayer structures

Enhancement of thermal emission and control of its direction are important for applications in optoelectronics and energy conversion. A number of structures have been proposed as coherent emission sources, which exhibit a large emissivity peak within a narrow wavelength band and at a well-defined direction. A commonly used structure is the grating, in which the excited surface polaritons or surface waves are coupled with propagating waves in air, resulting in coherent emission for p polarization only. One-dimensional photonic crystals can also support surface waves and may be modified to construct coherent emission sources. The present study investigates coherent emission from a multilayer structure consisting of a SiC film coated atop a dielectric photonic crystal (PC). By exciting surface waves at the interface between SiC and the PC, coherent emission is predicted for both p and s polarizations. In addition to the excitation of surface waves, the emission from the proposed multilayer structure can be greatly enhanced by the cavity resonance mode and the Brewster mode.