Phenomenological modelling of light transmission through nanowires arrays

Abstract A phenomenological model has been developed and discussed. The model is able to describe the experimentally measured light transmission of nanowires arrays. Two representative samples were studied in this report. A well aligned nanowires sample was first modelled by an effective layer model with surface roughness added. Then a slightly tilted nanowires sample with round top was phenomenologically modelled by a two layers model with a first top layer of an effective medium which includes a volume scattering contribution (Mie theory). Roughness and waviness are added to account for the nanowires small and large scale fluctuation in height. This phenomenological description was proven to be feasible by fitting experimental data. As a conclusion, light transmitted through randomly distributed nanowires can be explained by the combination of volume and surface scatterings using respectively Mie theory and rough Fresnel coefficients at the interfaces.