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Characterization of Surface Electromagnetic Waves and Scattering on Infrared Metamaterial Absorbers

We report, for the first time, a full experimental and computational investigation of all possible light matter interactions on the surface of an infrared metamaterial absorber (MMA). Two channels of energy dissipation - diffuse scattering and generation of surface electromagnetic waves - are quantified in terms of their impact on specular absorption. The diffuse scattering is found to play a negligible roll in the absorption process, at least for wavelengths greater than the periodicity of unit cell. In contrast, surface electromagnetic waves are found to be generated for transverse magnetic (TM) polarized light at the operational wavelength of the MMA, i.e. λ_0, and shorter wavelengths. Our computational results indicate that the highly lossy surface electromagnetic wave generated at λ_0 is responsible for the good angular dependence of absorption in TM polarization. Experimental results are supported by full wave three dimensional electromagnetic and eigenmode simulations.