Influence of emissivity tailoring on radiative membranes thermal behavior for gas sensing applications

Abstract Suspended micro-hotplates acting as infrared emitting sources are privileged energy-efficient sources for intended use in optical gas sensors. For such sources, the main constraints are the maximum operating temperature and the battery-limited available energy per measurement. Using simulations that take into account the dynamics of heating through the spatio-temporal radial profile, we first demonstrate how to design a thermally efficient membrane complying with these specifications. Once nonspecific thermal leaks are minimized, we show a further increase of the wall-plug efficiency by tailoring the membrane spectral emissivity with a metasurface in order to match the absorption spectrum of a gas of interest, e.g. CO 2 in this study. We consider the effects of an array of plasmonic resonators on the overall efficiency, and show non-trivial favorable effects on the thermal balance of the system.