Designing hard, low-refractive-index lossy materials for super wear-resistant absorbers

Super wear-resistant absorbers are important for next-generation high-stability optical splitters. However, traditional absorbers cannot obtain ideal wear resistance because of the limitation of hardness. We show that solid solutions of transition metal carbides are new hard, low-refractive-index lossy materials (HLLM). Super wear-resistant absorbers were obtained by constructing HLLM-based optical cavities. As a proof-of-concept, the absorptance of our fabricated Ti0.93W0.07C-based optical cavity was 95.6% in 400-800 nm wavelength range. In addition, its wear resistance was 23.3 times greater than that of traditional absorbers. Through the experiments and theoretical calculations, we proposed the design principles of HLLM and presented the materials map. [GRAPHICS] IMPACT STATEMENT We obtained the super wear-resistant absorbers for the first time through designing hard, low-refractive-index lossy materials, and constructing an optical cavity with the lossy materials as the top layer.

Automated summary

In this study, we successfully obtained super wear-resistant absorbers by designing hard, low-refractive-index lossy materials and constructing an optical cavity. The fabricated absorbers demonstrated high absorptance and excellent wear resistance.