We present a design of an ultra-broadband metamaterial absorber in the visible and near- infrared regions. The unit cell structure consists of a single layer of metallic truncated-pyramid resonator-dielectric-metal configuration, which results in a high absorption over a broad wavelength range. The absorber exhibits 98% absorption at normal incidence spanning a wideband range of 417–1091 nm, with >99% absorption within 822–1054 nm. The broadband absorption stability maintains 95% at large incident angles up to 40° for the transverse electric (TE)-mode and 20° for the transverse magnetic (TM)-mode. Furthermore, the polarization-insensitive broadband absorption is presented in this paper by analyzing absorption performance with various polarization angles. The proposed absorber can be applied for applications such as solar cells, infrared detection, and communication systems thanks to the convenient and compatible bandwidth for electronic THz sources.

In this paper, we present a numerical study of a metamaterial absorber that provides polarization-insensitive absorption over a broad bandwidth of operation over the mid-infrared region. The absorber consists of a periodically patterned metal-dielectric-metal structure integrated with an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) nanolayer into the insulating dielectric gap region. Such an anomalous broadband absorber is achieved thanks to a couple of resonant modes including plasmon and ENZ modes that are excited under mid-IR light illumination. By adding a 0.06-μm-thick ENZ layer between the patterned gold rectangular grating and the SiO₂ dielectric layer, the absorber captures >95% light over a 1.5 µm bandwidth centered at a near-8-μm wavelength over a wide range of oblique incidence under transverse-magnetic and -electric polarizations. The designed ENZ-based wideband absorber has potential for many practical applications, including sensing, imaging and solar energy harvesting over a wide frequency regime.