In this talk, we will discuss our recent work in the area of wave manipulation with high-contrast metasurfaces, with special interest in manipulating optical wavefronts and thermal emission. In addition to our recent theoretical and experimental work in the area of gradient metasurfaces to manipulate the impinging light, we will discuss how similar concepts may be extended to thermal sources, to manipulate their emission features. Incandescent sources made of electrically-heated films suffer from low efficiencies and offer poor control over the directionality and spatial localization, as well as the spectral and polarization properties of the emitted light. We have recently demonstrated that, by nanostructuring a SiC surface, we can concentrate the thermal emission of a preselected spectral range into a well-defined location above the surface. Concentrating the thermal radiation can have direct impact on the design and operation of the future generation of thermo-photovoltaic cells in addition to providing the ability for local heat generation and moreover mitigate challenges associated with thermal management in low thermal budget devices. Our recent theoretical work suggests that gradient metasurface concepts may be suitably extended to tailor thermal emission control with a new degree of control.
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