TABLE OF CONTENTS Optical and thermal radiative properties are fundamental physical properties that describe the interaction between electromagnetic waves and matter from deep ultraviolet to far- infrared spectral regions. A large number of studies have been devoted to the measurement, analysis, modeling, and simulation of optical and radiative characteristics of materials in solid, liquid, gas, and plasma phases. The radiative properties of nanostructured materials are critical to the functionality and the performance of many devices, such as semiconductor lasers, radiation detectors, tunable optical filters, waveguides, solar cells, and selective emitters and absorbers. The use of microstructures not only modifies the optical properties for optoelectronic applications and processing control but also facilitates some important energy conversion devices, such as solar cells and thermophotovoltaic applications.
This chapter will start with the radiative properties of a single layer with or without considering the wave interference effect. The effect of partial coherence and surface scattering will be considered next. The approach will then be generalized to multilayered structures using the 1-D matrix formulation. Furthermore, periodic structures such as photonic crystals and gratings will be studied based on the Bloch wave equation. Subsequently, the effective medium formulations will be briefly discussed. Finally, the effect of surface roughness and microstructures on the radiative properties will be presented.
Crystalline films, from a few nanometers to several micrometers thick, have been deposited (by physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, sputtering, laser ablation, molecular beam epitaxy, rapid thermal processing, and other techniques) onto suitable...
