Harnessing metasurface solar absorbers for high-efficiency solar absorption: Review of design, mechanisms, and challenges

• Provides a comprehensive analysis of metasurface solar absorbers spanning the UV, visible, and IR regimes along with its fundamental mechanisms. • Examines the role of material selection such as refractory metals, dielectrics, nitrides, graphene–metal composites in enhancing optical performance and thermal stability. • Summarizes state-of-the-art designs achieving near-unity absorption in the visible spectrum and >97% in UV/IR domains. • Analysed for high temperature applications, high melting point material like TiC shows tremendous thermal stability. • Examines dielectric spacers such as SiO₂ achieving superior absorption rates exceeding 97% due to their low-loss characteristics with enhanced plasmonic and Fabry–Perot resonances. Metasurface solar absorbers have emerged as promising technologies for efficient solar energy harvesting, due to their ability to control light at subwavelength scales. Unlike traditional solar absorbers such as bulk semiconductors, multilayer coatings, and plasmonic materials, metasurfaces enable higher absorption efficiency, broader spectral coverage, reduced material usage, and better thermal stability. These features make them ideal for solar-thermal and photovoltaic (PV) applications. This review provides a detailed overview of recent progress in the design and development of metasurface-based solar absorbers, discusses the fundamental concepts behind metasurfaces, including their ability to manipulate electromagnetic waves through resonance and interference effects. Compared various materials such as metals, dielectrics used for metasurface fabrication with a focus on their optical and thermal properties. For high temperature applications, high melting point material like Titanium Carbide (TiC) shows tremendous thermal stability. Dielectric spacers such as Silicon dioxide (SiO₂) achieve superior absorption rates exceeding 97% due to their low-loss characteristics with enhanced plasmonic and Fabry-Perot resonances. Different metasurface configurations designed for ultraviolet (UV), visible (VIS), and infrared (IR) absorption are discussed, along with the mechanisms that drive their performance, such as localized resonances, hybrid modes, and multilayer interference effects. Comparative analysis is provided on key parameters such as absorption efficiency, spectral selectivity, design complexity, and environmental robustness. This work focuses specifically on metasurface absorbers that operate across a broad solar spectrum range of 200-3000 nm. By combining theoretical understanding, material selection, and design strategies, this review aims to support the development of scalable and spectrally tunable metasurface absorbers for next-generation solar energy systems.