High-performance nickel-polyimide absorber with integrated solar absorption, thermal emission and solar-to-electrical conversion

The growing demand for efficient solar energy harvesting has driven the development of absorbers capable of operating across ultra-broad frequency ranges while sustaining stable performance under realistic conditions. Conventional absorbers are often constrained by narrow bandwidths, angular sensitivity and fabrication complexity, limiting their deployment in large-scale solar-thermal systems. To overcome these challenges, we propose a nickel-polyimide-nickel metasurface absorber configured in a metal-dielectric-metal architecture with a patterned resonant geometry. The design achieves absorption above 90 % across 153.25–2269.16 THz corresponding to a wavelength of 132–1956 nm with an average efficiency of 96.52 % and maintains absorption above 80 % from 104.77 THz to beyond 3000 THz. Under AM-1.5 solar illumination, the proposed absorber reaches a solar absorption efficiency of 96.38 % while thermal emission analysis shows near-blackbody behavior with efficiency increasing from 82.14 % at 500 K to 93.32 % at 2500 K and 95.02 % at 3500 K. In addition, the device shows strong solar-to-electrical conversion, attaining 66.61 % under high solar concentration at 1000 K. The absorber is completely polarization-insensitive and sustains over 80 % absorption up to 60° incidence. By integrating ultra-broadband frequency coverage, high thermal stability, angular tolerance and fabrication feasibility, the absorber establishes a multifunctional platform that unites solar absorption, thermal emission and solar-to-electrical conversion, positioning it as a promising candidate for next-generation solar-thermal systems.