Harvesting thermal infrared emission using nanodipole terminated by traveling wave rectifier

A rectenna formed from nano-dipole antenna terminated by plasmonic metal-insulator-metal travelling wave transmission line rectifier is introduced. The proposed rectenna is suitable for thermal energy harvesting at 30 THz. The vertical spacing between the two metal layers is kept at 2 nm in order to maximize the rectifier´s responsivity. Such small spacing can be realized using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technique. If compared with rectennas with localized rectifiers, the proposed rectenna has an enhanced system efficiency due to the efficient matching between the nanotenna and rectifier.