The work presented here addresses an important topic in thermal radiation detection when gold-black is used as an absorber. Sought is a model to simulate the absorption of thermal radiation by gold-black.

Fractal geometry is created to simulate the topology of gold-black. Then electrical circuits based on the topology are identified that capture the physics of the interaction between the gold-black material and incident electro-magnetic radiation. Parameters of the model are then adjusted so results obtained are comparable to absorption data from the literature.

Potential next-generation radiometric instruments will likely involve thermal radiation detectors using gold-black as an absorbing medium. A model that accurately simulates gold-black absorption will be an important tool in their design.