Optimized Tapered Dipole Nanoantenna As Efficient Energy Harvester

Optimized tapered dipole nanoantenna as
efficient energy harvester

Youssef M. El-Toukhy,1,2 Mohamed Hussein,1,3 Mohamed Farhat O. Hameed,1,2
A. M. Heikal,1,2 M. M. Abd-Elrazzak,2 and S. S. A. Obayya1,*
1
Centre for Photonics and Smart Materials, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Sheikh Zayed District, 6th of
October City, Giza, Egypt
2
Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura, 35516, Egypt
3
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11566, Egypt
*
[email protected]
Abstract: In this paper, a novel design of tapered dipole nanoantenna is

introduced and numerically analyzed for energy harvesting applications.
The proposed design consists of three steps tapered dipole nanoantenna
with rectangular shape. Full systematic analysis is carried out where the
antenna impedance, return loss, harvesting efficiency and field confinement
are calculated using 3D finite element frequency domain method (3D-
FEFD). The structure geometrical parameters are optimized using particle
swarm algorithm (PSO) to improve the harvesting efficiency and reduce the
return loss at wavelength of 500 nm. A harvesting efficiency of 55.3% is
achieved which is higher than that of conventional dipole counterpart by
29%. This enhancement is attributed to the high field confinement in the
dipole gap as a result of multiple tips created in the nanoantenna design.
Furthermore, the antenna input impedance is tuned to match a wide range of
fabricated diode based upon the multi-resonance characteristic of the
proposed structure.
©2016 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (350.6050) Solar energy; (310.6628) Subwavelength structures, nanostructures;
(250.5403) Plasmonics.
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1. Introduction
In early 1970s, Bailey has proposed the concept of rectenna in the field of solar energy
harvesting [1] where rectenna stands for a rectifying diode coupled with antenna.
Nanoantenna is responsible for transforming solar radiation into an AC electric field across
the diode which rectifies the signal to obtain DC power. In recent years, due to the large
demand on renewable clean energy, rectennas design and fabrication techniques are getting
more mature as this approach promises to offer highly efficient solar energy harvesting
systems. Referring to the radiation spectrum of the sun, maximum irradiance occurs at the
visible wavelength range from 400 to 700 nm. Nonetheless, extending the utilization of
rectenna systems to visible frequencies (PHz) resulted in several challenges. First, the
challenge of scaling down antenna dimensions to submicrometer which is becoming more
realizable with advanced technologies [2]. However, suitable rectifiers are still not available
for this operation criteria. Metal\insulator\metal (MIM) diode topology is gaining interest as a
candidate for high frequency operation [3] and an investigation of MIM diode limitations will
be illustrated later.
The main factors contributing to the efficiency of nano-rectenna systems are:
(1) Harvesting efficiency of the nanoantenna device.
(2) The cut off frequency of the diode and responsivity at zero voltage bias.
(3) Impedance matching between the nanoantenna and the diode.
Vandenbosch and Ma [4,5] reported an upper bound for total solar harvesting efficiency of
64%, over wavelength range 400-1200 nm, for a silver dipole nanoantenna. This design offers
a nominal input impedance of 250 Ω at resonance and harvesting efficiency of 26% at
wavelength of 500 nm. Bowtie [6,7] and Vivaldi [8] nanoantennas offered a low input
impedance of about 100 Ω at resonance. However, authors study didn’t provide calculations
for harvesting efficiency at visible light range. Other design topologies were proposed, such
as spiral, log-periodic [9], flower-shaped dipole and elliptic dipole nanoantenna [10]. While
some of these designs offer higher efficiencies up to 90% at 500 nm wavelength, they suffer
from very high design complexity and the lack of impedance analysis in the literature,
especially over the visible light region. A tapered dipole nanoantenna topology was firstly
introduced in [11] where two structures were presented, two-arm and cross arm dipole
antennas with tapered end. The simulation results for these structures show high field
confinement in the antenna gap where the cross dipole antenna exhibits the higher field
enhancement. However, this study was not intended for solar harvesting application and thus
no further analysis for the harvesting efficiency or input impedance was presented [11]. A
study of the field distribution around nanoantenna and current induced on the surface was also
carried out for the bowtie and spiral designs [6,9] where simulation and experimental results
showed high enhancement over the conventional dipole design [5]. However, these rectenna
devices are reported to suffer from low coupling efficiency between nanoantenna and rectifier
due to high impedance mismatch.
To ensure highly efficient operation of rectenna system, MIM diode must obtain several
characteristics. One of the main characteristics is the high responsivity which is a measure of
the DC output with respect to the input power [3]. Another characteristic is the diode
impedance (RD and CD) which defines the junction cut-off frequency [3] and plays the major
role in coupling efficiency with the antenna device. While nanoantennas have a typical
impedance of 100-200 Ω, the reported MIM diodes offer as low impedance as 0.5 – 3 kΩ
[6,11] with thickness range from 4 nm down to 0.7 nm (MIM thickness is directly
proportional to diode resistance [12]). This deviation between MIM diode and nanoantenna
impedances reduces the coupling efficiency significantly as reported in [6,9].
It is worth emphasizing that this work doesn’t aim to model a new rectifier topology. This
paper introduces a novel nanoantenna design which offers harvesting efficiencies up to 55.3%
at wavelength λ of 500 nm with a field confinement 60 times greater than that of the
conventional dipole design. This enhancement is attributed to high divergence of surface
current over the nanoantenna surface as a result of the multiple thickness-grading introduced
to the design. Moreover, the proposed structure can be tuned to perfectly match a wide range
of fabricated rectifier impedances based on the multi-resonance characteristic of this novel
design. Three design configurations are introduced which have 500Ω, 1kΩ and 2kΩ resonant
impedances to match that of MIM diodes reported in [6,11].
Following this introduction, the theory and design consideration will be presented in
section II. A description of the simulation environment and optimization technique are
considered in section III. In section IV, detailed simulation results are reported which quantify
the benefits of the proposed nanoantenna design topology. Finally, conclusion will be drawn
in section V.
2. Theory and design consideration
This research work focuses on overcoming the drawbacks of previously studied nanoantenna
designs such as: low field confinement at the gap, small nominal input impedance and low
harvesting efficiency at visible light frequencies. Moreover, this study introduces a novel
design that offers relatively high manufacture feasibility as will be discussed later.
For an efficient operation of rectenna system, high intensity field should exist at the
surface of the MIM diode δ s so that sufficient electrons can tunnel through the diode.
Therefore, high field confinement at the gap of the nanoantenna represents a major
requirement in the nanoantenna design. According to the electromagnetic theory, electric field
tends to be accumulated at the metal tips of the antenna structure [6,13]. Based on this
phenomenon, the proposed design was constructed by inserting more steps of smaller
dimensions into the conventional dipole design, as shown in Fig. 1, which increases the
number of tips and consequently the electric field confinement by the nanoantenna. This is
directly related to the antenna efficiency where the harvested electric energy is transformed to
AC power at the antenna port. Figure 1 demonstrates the design parameters of the
conventional dipole and the two proposed nanoantennas topologies, type 1 and type 2. Type 1
nanoantenna is considered a modified version of the conventional dipole where one more step
of smaller dimensions is inserted. On the other hand, type 2 nanoantenna represents a 3-steps
tapered dipole. Silver material is selected for all the nanoantennas studied in this work as it’s
reported to offer higher efficiency when compared to other metals [5]. The proposed design
parameters are chosen so that the overall nanoantenna volume is less than that of the
conventional dipole reported in [4] to obtain a shorter device length and to have a fair
comparison with the conventional dipole as larger material volume will increase the harvested
light. Additionally, a minimum feature size of 5 nm is maintained in grading adjacent dipole
steps to reduce design complexity.
Further study of this design was executed by analyzing the surface current distribution
over the nanoantenna surface as shown in Fig. 2 at λ = 500 nm. The figure shows that the
divergence of the current at the tips of the tapered dipole is much higher than any point in the
middle which indicates high accumulation of charges and thus a greater field confinement
[14]. Moreover, it’s found that a higher field confinement at the gap region is achieved by
grading dipole dimensions so that the smallest stub is located towards the gap.
Fig. 1. (a) Conventional dipole [4], (b) Type 1 (2-steps tapered dipole), (c) Type 2 (3-steps
tapered dipole).
As the wave propagates through the tapered dipole antenna structure, it will encounter
different interfaces between adjacent dipoles stubs as shown in Fig. 1. Consequently, the
number of current paths on the antenna surface increases, as illustrated in Fig. 2, which results
in multiple impedance resonances [7,15]. For a multi-resonance antenna, the input impedance
at a single resonant frequency can be expressed as a function of all the resonant impedances
within the antenna bandwidth [16,17]. The current paths excited in the antenna are directly
related to the design dimensions. Therefore, the proposed design can be configured so that its
input impedance can match perfectly with wide range of fabricated diode impedances.
The suggested design can be fabricated using top-down methods such as electron-beam
lithography (EBL) and focused ion beam (FIB) techniques [8]. The EBL is employed to
define desired patterns down to the nanometer scale in resists. Therefore, it is normally
combined with stripping (lift-off) or etching to obtain the desired patterns in the target
materials. For a specific EBL technique, reported in [18], 4–8 nm patterning and lift-off were
achieved for Au nanoparticles. On contrast to EBL, the FIB technique can define patterns
down to the nanoscale without using masks [19]. Most widespread instruments of FIB use
gallium ion source which is capable of fabricating sub-5nm holes [20]. Another technique of
FIB is called Helium ion beam milling which is inherently less damaging to the sample than
Ga ions but ideal for structuring thin slabs of material with high precision [21]. The helium
milling was reported to achieve 5–10 nm resolution in patterning a thin gold film using
milling from sides to center [21] .These fabrication methods have been commonly used in
manufacturing nanoantennas with highly controllable parameters. However, the fabrication of
several nanoantenna structures (such as spiral [9], elliptical and flower [10]) suffers from the
complexity of the lift-off process for ultra-small features and curvatures since resists are
difficult to strip away. The proposed design offers high feasibility since it doesn’t include
sharp tips or curvature. Furthermore, type 1 and type 2 structures have a minimum feature size
of 5 nm, to be compatible with the techniques stated above and a large gap size to facilitate
the fabrication process [8]. Moreover, a true smooth taper can be more feasible than the
reported graded tapered dipole. However, the stepped thickness-grading introduced in the
proposed design allows for impedance configurability, as discussed in section 4.5, and a
higher harvesting efficiency due to field accumulation around metal tips of the nanoantenna
structure.
Fig. 2. Surface current distribution over nanoantenna structures at 500 nm wavelength (the
bigger arrows indicates higher divergence of current) for (a) conventional dipole, (b) type 1,
and (c) type 2.
3. Simulation environment and numerical methodology
The proposed nano dipole design is analyzed using finite element frequency domain (FEFD)
method via Comsol Multiphysics software [23] where the harvesting efficiency, return loss
and input impedance are calculated at a wavelength of 500 nm. FEFD technique is widely
used in analyzing optical and electric structure with high precision [24,25]. The constructed
model uses a fine mesh with a minimum and maximum element size of 1 nm and 10 nm
respectively in order to resolve the skin depth of silver (3 nm at 500 nm wavelength). The
studied nanoantennas has a fixed thickness T of 40 nm, indicated in Fig. 1, and surrounded
by free space everywhere as in [4,26]. The boundary conditions are set to perfect matched
layer (PML) and the permittivity of silver introduced in the model is taken from Johnson and
Christy (1972) [27]. According to the reciprocity theorem, the efficiency of an antenna in the
transmission mode η rad is equal to the efficiency in receiving mode. The radiation efficiency
of an antenna is calculated as [4]:
Prad Prad
η rad = = (1)
Pin Prad + Ploss
where Prad is the total radiated power, Pin is the power input at the antenna port, and Ploss
represents the power dissipated in the nanoantenna material. Table 1 shows the equations used
to calculate Prad and Ploss where S sc is the scattered intensity poynting vector, J is the antenna
surface current, and Qrl together with Qml represent the resistive losses and magnetic losses
respectively.
Table 1. Radiated Power and Power Loss Equations Extracted from the Simulated
Electric and Magnetic Fields [23,31]
Prad =  S sc
ds Ploss =  Q dV
antenna − volume
1 Q = Qrl + Qml
S sc = (
Re E × H
*
)
2
1 1
Qrl = (
Re J . E
*
) Qml = (
Re jω B. H
*
)
2 2
The input impedance of the proposed nanoantenna design can be configured to match a
wide range of fabricated rectifier impedances. In this approach, particle swarm optimization
(PSO) [28] algorithm is utilized to search for the best nanoantenna dimensions values that
give the highest radiation efficiency and the desired value for the input impedance. This
process is done by linking a multi-objective PSO algorithm with the external FEFD analyzer
via Comsol Multiphysics software where the PSO algorithm updates the nanoantenna
dimensions values and the FEFD analyzer acts as a fitness function evaluator. The fitness
function of the PSO algorithm is defined as:
f = c1 ×η rad + c2 × | S11 | (2)
where S11 represents a measure of the reflected power at the antenna port which is directly
related to the antenna impedance. The S11 is calculated in dB and has typical values of several
decades in negative. Further, η rad is the ratio presented in Eq. (1) and it’s less than unity in
magnitude. Additionally, c1 and c2 are constants that are chosen as weighting factors to
compensate the magnitude variation between S11 and η rad so that both parameters have the
same influence on the fitness function. Consequently, the optimization process is not carried
away by a single parameter value. These constants are chosen through an iterative process
where the optimization algorithm is executed repeatedly then c1 and c2 values are adjusted
after each iteration in order to optimize both S11 and η rad fairly using the PSO algorithm.
For each candidate design, some constraints must be present in order to pass the values to
the FEFD analyzer. These constraints are described as:
Wi >Wi +1 (3)
Wi −Wi +1 > 5 nm (4)
L × W ≤ const ,
n
i i n = 1, 2,3 (5)
where Eq. (3) ensures that the confinement occurs at the gap, while Eq. (4) is introduced to
increase design feasibility and reduces manufacture cost. Further, Eq. (5) provides that
optimized designs don’t have exaggerated overall. The constant value in the last equation
represents a measure of the volume of the conventional dipole design in [4].
4. Simulation results
4.1 Model validation
In order to check the validity of the constructed FEFD model, a full analysis was executed for
the conventional silver dipole nanoantenna [4] with L = 250 nm, W = 40 nm, G = 10 nm,
and T = 40 nm. Figure 3 shows the radiation efficiency versus the wavelength for the FEFD
constructed model and that reported in [4] by the finite difference time domain (FDTD)
method. It’s evident from this figure that a good agreement between both models is obtained
especially at wavelength of 500 nm which is used as the operating wavelength of the
optimized tapered nanoantenna. The slight deviation between the two curves can be attributed
to two reasons. First, the constructed model in this study is based on FEFD solver, via Comsol
Multiphysics software, which is a well-known method for its accuracy and high precision.
However, the reported results by Vandenbosch and Ma [4] are based on the FDTD technique.
Moreover, the meshing element used in this study has a minimum size of 1 nm which is 5
times smaller than that used in [4]. Figure 4 shows the variation of the harvesting efficiency
with the wavelength at different minimum meshing sizes. It’s evident from this figure that the
simulation results are independent of the mesh size which ensures the accuracy of the FEFD
results. It’s also worth noting that the choice of the silver permittivity can affect the
harvesting efficiency as shown in Fig. 5. The constructed model of the tapered nanoantenna is
based on the permittivity values of Johnson and Christy model [27] which shows a good
agreement with the experimental results [27]. Therefore, it’s concluded that the slight
deviation between our results and that reported in [4] can be due to the choice of the silver
permittivity model and the meshing capabilities of the FEFD and the FDTD [4].
Fig. 3. Wavelength dependent harvesting efficiency for conventional dipole by the FDTD [4]
and FEFD method.
Fig. 4. Wavelength dependent harvesting efficiency for the conventional dipole at different
minimum mesh element sizes.
Fig. 5. Wavelength dependent harvesting efficiency for the conventional dipole using different
permittivities based on experimental data [4], Johnson and Christy model [27], Palik model
[29] along with that reported by Vandenbosch and Ma [4].
4.2 Efficiency and return loss analysis
In this analysis, the dipole nanoantenna is excited at its gap by a voltage imposed between the
two conducting arms of the dipole and thus corresponds to Thevinin equivalent circuit. This
approach, also known as gap excitation, is previously reported to result in antenna impedance
very similar to that calculated using conventional feeding line excitation [30]. A nominal
diode impedance of 500 Ω was chosen which corresponds to the fabricated diode reported in
[6]. This diode impedance acts as the Thevinin impedance of the source feeding the
nanoantenna at the gap. Additionally, this analysis is carried out at λ of 500 nm where the
maximum irradiance of the sun occurs.
Type 1 and type 2 nanoantennas are optimized to have resonance at λ = 500 nm with an
input impedance of 500 Ω to match the diode impedance introduced to the model. The
optimization process follows the PSO algorithm to maximize the suggested fitness function
(Eq. (2)). In the case of type 1 nanoantenna, the optimizer works through a 5-dimensional
solution space ( L1 ,W1 , L2 ,W2 , G ) while type 2 structure has a 7-dimensional solution space
( L1 ,W1 , L2 ,W2 , L3 , W3 , G ). Regarding the optimization of type 2 nanoantenna design, the PSO
algorithm converged to maximum value of fitness function in 72 iterations. This is illustrated
in Fig. 6 along with the corresponding values of S11 and η rad at 3 points which show the
effectiveness of applying PSO technique in nanoantenna design problems.
The optimized tapered dipoles dimensions, introduced to the FEFD analyzer, are given in
Table 2 along with the dimensions of the dipole reported in [4]. Additionally, the optimized
designs have smaller overall volume than the conventional dipole leading to smaller size and
weight of the device, especially when used in arrays. The proposed designs show high
enhancement over the conventional dipole design whereas type 1 design offers η rad = 47%
and S11 = −23.6 dB at λ = 500 nm. However, type 2 design achieves η rad = 55.3% and
S11 = −28.1 dB at the same wavelength. On the other hand, the conventional dipole [4] design
offers η rad = 26% and a near zero value of return loss at λ = 500 nm. This is clearly
illustrated in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 where the harvesting efficiency and return loss of the tapered
dipole designs are put in comparison with that of the conventional dipole design.
Additionally, total harvesting efficiency calculations are performed for the proposed
nanoantenna designs to obtain a measure of the ultimate optical efficiency over the total
wavelength range of the sun irradiance. The total harvesting efficiency can be defined as [4]:
∞
ηtotal =
 P ( λ , T ) ×η ( λ ) d λ
0 rad
(6)
∞
 P (λ,T ) d λ
0
where λ is the wavelength, T is the absolute temperature of the black body (in K), and P is
the Planck’s law for black body radiation defined in [4]. The total harvesting efficiency values
for type 2, type 1 and conventional dipole nanoantenna are equal to 79.2%, 62.9%, and
64.1%, respectively. It’s worth noting that the aim of our study is to improve the nanoantenna
operation at single frequency (λ = 500 nm) where the input impedance and field confinement
are optimized. However, calculating the total harvesting efficiency for the proposed design
ensures a highly efficient operation at other frequencies.
Fig. 6. Fitness function (Eq. (2) values for type 2 nanoantenna versus number of iterations of
the PSO algorithm. The corresponding values of S11 and η rad are demonstrated for 3 points.
Fig. 7. Variation of harvesting efficiency versus wavelength for conventional dipole [4] and the
suggested designs of type 1 and type 2 nanoantennas.
Fig. 8. Wavelength dependent return loss at the nanoantenna port for conventional dipole [4]
and the proposed designs of type 1 and type 2 nanoantennas.
Table 2. Dipole Designs Dimensions in Nanometer Introduced to the FEFD analyzer
Antenna conventional
Type 1 Type 2
parameters dipole [4]
T 40 nm 40 nm 40 nm
G 10 nm 41.3 nm 49.8 nm
L1 250 nm 97.5 nm 103.5 nm
W1 40 nm 31.3 nm 51 nm
L2 - 103.4 nm 70 nm
W2 - 11.6 nm 19.5 nm
L3 - - 5 nm
W3 - - 13.4 nm
Relative
1 0.42 0.67
volume
4.3 Electric field confinement analysis

To obtain the electric field distribution around the nano dipole, the whole structure is
illuminated by a normally incident plane wave. The incident electric field has an intensity of 1
V/m and is polarized linearly parallel to the antenna axis. The dipoles design dimensions are
listed in Table 2 as in the previous analysis. However, the gap size is held constant during this
investigation at 10 nm for all design topologies due to its major effect on the field
confinement through the gap. Figure 9 illustrates the electric field profile for conventional
dipole, type 1 and type 2 nanoantennas at λ = 500 nm. As demonstrated in the figures, electric
field is accumulated with high intensity around the tips of the three nanoantennas whereas
type 2 topology produces the maximum field confinement in the gap. To obtain a measure of
the field enhancement, the electric field vector was integrated over the gap region for the three
design topologies. The simulation results show a relative intensity enhancement of 10 times of
magnitude for type 1 structure and 60 times of magnitude for type 2 structure over the
conventional dipole design. This enhancement is attributed to inserting more tips in the
nanoantenna design where a high divergence of surface current occurs.
4.4 Gap study for type 2 nanoantenna
For type 2 nanoantenna, a study of the effect of the gap size on different antenna parameters
(such as input impedance, harvesting efficiency, and total current at the gap) was carried out.
The input impedance of the nanoantenna, given in Eq. (6), consists of three parts: the loss
resistance Rloss , the radiation resistance Rrad , and the reactive component X which
represents the energy stored in the near field [31].
Z = Rrad + Rloss + jX (7)
The loss resistance is primarily determined by the resistive losses of the antenna material with
slight dependence on antenna geometry [32]. However, the radiation resistance depends
mainly on the antenna geometry and the surface current distribution where the energy lost in
radiation resistance is transformed to electromagnetic radiation [31,33]. Based on the dipole
antenna theory, radiation resistance is directly proportional to the total electrical length of the
antenna which is function of total length, diameter and gap size [30,34]. This is compatible
with the results plotted in Fig. 10 which shows small changes in the reactive part of
impedance while the resistance is significantly increased, contributed to the increase of
radiation and loss resistances.
Fig. 9. Electric field distribution over dipole structures at λ = 500 nm and G = 20 nm for the
(a) conventional dipole, (b) type 1, and (c) type 2 nanoantennas.
The total current induced at the antenna/rectifier interface represents the major factor in
the rectenna system operation as it gives a measure of the DC power output from the rectenna
device. In this analysis, the total current is calculated by integrating the electric surface
current J over the rectifier port surface δ s placed at the gap as illustrated in Fig. 1. The
values of the total current and harvesting efficiency for each gap size are plotted in Fig. 11. It
is evident from this figure that the total current has relatively small variation with the gap size
change which indicates that the total field at the antenna port is almost constant. It is worth
noting that the values of flux density (C/m2) and surface current (A/m2) at the gap decrease
due to larger gap size. However, the total field enclosed in the gap region and the total current
present at the rectifier port have relatively small changes in magnitudes. The harvesting
efficiency can be expressed as the ratio of Rrad to the total input resistance [30]. Therefore,
it’s expected that the harvesting efficiency will have relatively small variations, as evident
from Fig. 10, since Rrad and Rloss change conjointly with the gap size as shown in Fig. 10.
It’s worth mentioning that the ripples in the numerical results, shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11,
are due to internal resonances introduced when changing the gap size quite similar to Fabry-
Perot interference pattern [35,36].
Fig. 10. Variation of real and imaginary parts of the antenna input impedance with the gap size.
Fig. 11. Variation of the harvesting efficiency and the total current at the nanoantenna port with
the change of the gap size.
4.5. Configurability of type 2 nanoantenna input impedance

Due to different surface current paths over type 2 nanoantenna, it acquires a multi impedance
resonance behavior. This is clearly illustrated in Fig. 12 where the input impedance for type 2
nanoantenna, with the previously studied dimensions, is plotted versus the free space
wavelength. The figure shows four resonance points, indicated by the black dots, at different
wavelengths with the corresponding resonance resistance values. Since this study targets an
optimum operation at 500 nm wavelength, type 2 nanoantenna dimensions are tuned to match
a 500 Ω impedance at resonance (indicated by point A). This impedance corresponds to the
impedance of the fabricated MIM diode in [6].
As discussed above, the value of the input impedance at a single resonance point depends
on the corresponding values for all resonance points over the antenna bandwidth. Moreover,
type 2 nanoantenna can have up to 7 degrees of freedom in the design parameters as shown in
Fig. 1. Therefore, these parameters can be tuned to allow various resonant impedance values
and hence, a wide range of impedance matching can be obtained at the desired operation
wavelength. Figure 13 shows the input impedance for two optimized designs of type 2
nanoantenna which have resonant impedances of 1 KΩ (Fig. 13(a)) and 2 kΩ (Fig. 13(b)) at
λ = 500 nm corresponding to the fabricated MIM diode resistances reported in [11]. The
optimized dimensions of type 2 designs are listed in Table 3 which shows relatively small
changes in the overall volume for the different structures. Figure 14 shows the harvesting
efficiencies for type 2 nanoantennas with the different resonant impedances. It’s found that, at
λ = 500 nm, optimizing the antenna design parameters to have higher resonance impedance
results in lower harvesting efficiency.
Fig. 12. Real and imaginary parts of the input impedance for type 2 nanoantenna with 500 Ω
resonance impedance.
Fig. 13. Real and imaginary parts of the input impedance for optimized type 2 nanoantennas
with resonance impedance of (a) 1 kΩ and (b) 2 kΩ.
Fig. 14. Variation of harvesting efficiency versus wavelength for type 2 nanoantennas with
different resonant impedance.
Table 3. Type 2 Design Configurations for Different Input Impedance at λ = 500 nm
Antenna Type 2 design resonance impedance

parameters 500Ω 1kΩ 2kΩ
T 40 nm 40 nm 40 nm
G 49.8 nm 47 nm 40.2 nm
L1 103.5 nm 99.7 nm 129.9 nm
W1 51 nm 49.5 nm 54.6 nm
L2 70 nm 73.6 nm 60 nm
W2 19.5 nm 17.9 nm 39.8 nm
L3 5 nm 9.1 nm 10.5 nm
W3 13.4 nm 5.6 nm 8.6 nm
Relative
1 0.94 1.4
volume
4.6. Fabrication tolerance analysis for type 2 nanoantenna

While modern techniques are available for fabricating nanoantenna devices, fabrication
processes at nano scale always convey some perturbation. Therefore, a study of the
fabrication tolerance is performed for type 2 nanoantenna structure. This study is directed to
calculate the sensitivity of the nanoantenna performance while introducing minor changes to
the structure dimensions ( L1 ,W1 , L2 ,W2 , L3 , W3 ). It’s worth noting that the tolerance of a
specific parameter is studied while other parameters of the design are held constant at their
optimum values ( L1 = 103.5 nm, W1 = 51 nm, L2 = 70 nm, W2 = 19.5 nm, L3 = 5 nm, W3 = 13.4 nm ) .
Figures 15 and 16 show the variation of the harvesting efficiency and the resonance
impedance with the studied parameters W1 and L1 , respectively. Additionally, the summary of
the tolerance study is listed in Table 4. It’s evident from the figures and Table 4 that the
proposed design has a tolerance of ± 5% at which the harvesting efficiency is still higher than
53.8% with a maximum deviation of ± 58 Ω from the optimum input impedance of the
nanoantenna. Additionally, a maximum wavelength resonance shift of 10 nm is obtained
within the tolerance of ± 5% of the studied parameters. Therefore, it’s evident from the above
results that the proposed nanoantenna design bears high robustness for fabrication
imperfection.
Fig. 15. Values of harvesting efficiency and resonance impedance with 5% variation of W1
parameter.
Fig. 16. Values of harvesting efficiency and resonance impedance with 5% variation of L1
parameter.
Table 4. Fabrication Tolerance for Type 2 Design Parameters at λ = 500 nm
Parameter Tolerance Harvesting efficiency Impedance

L1 103.5 nm ± 5% Higher than 53.9% 500 Ω ± 54 Ω
W1 51 nm ± 5% Higher than 53.8% 500 Ω ± 58 Ω
L2 70 nm ± 5% Higher than 55.2% 500 Ω ± 35 Ω
W2 19.5 nm ± 5% Higher than 55.25% 500 Ω ± 31 Ω
L3 5 nm ± 5% Higher than 55.45% 500 Ω ± 30 Ω
W3 13.4 nm ± 5% Higher than 55.5% 500 Ω ± 27 Ω
5. Conclusion
In this paper, a full study for a novel tapered dipole design has been implemented where
antenna input impedance, return loss, harvesting efficiency, surface current and field
confinement were calculated using FEFD method. Simulation detailed results have
demonstrated that the proposed nanoantenna structure can achieve a harvesting efficiency of
55.3% at wavelength of 500 nm and field confinement 60 times higher than the conventional
dipole structure. Additionally, the configurability of type 2 nanoantenna resonant impedance
has been proven and three different design configurations were proposed to match fabricated
diode impedances.

Optimized Tapered Dipole Nanoantenna As Efficient Energy Harvester

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Optimized Tapered Dipole Nanoantenna As Efficient Energy Harvester

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Optimized tapered dipole nanoantenna as

efficient energy harvester

Abstract: In this paper, a novel design of tapered dipole nanoantenna is

References and links

Wi −Wi +1 > 5 nm (4)

4.3 Electric field confinement analysis

4.5. Configurability of type 2 nanoantenna input impedance

Antenna Type 2 design resonance impedance

4.6. Fabrication tolerance analysis for type 2 nanoantenna

Parameter Tolerance Harvesting efficiency Impedance

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