We demonstrate metamaterial metal-based bolometers, which take advantage of resonant absorption in that a spectral and/or polarization filter can be built into the bolometer. Our proof-of-principle gold-nanostructure-based devices operate around 1.5 \mum wavelength and exhibit room-temperature time constants of about 134 \mus. The ultimate detectivity is limited by Johnson noise, enabling room-temperature detection of 1 nW light levels within 1 Hz bandwidth. Graded bolometer arrays might allow for integrated spectrometers with several octaves bandwidth without the need for gratings or prisms and for integrated polarization analysis without external polarization optics.
@article{arxiv.1204.0966,
title = {Metamaterial metal-based bolometers},
author = {Fabian B. P. Niesler and Justyna K. Gansel and Sarah Fischbach and Martin Wegener},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.0966},
year = {2015}
}