The Hefei Advanced Light Facility (HALF) is a diffraction limited storage ring (DLSR).The extracted light of HALF has higher brightness resulting in higher heat load to the storage ring. The redundant synchrotron radiation is absorbed by the photon absorber located in the front-end to protect the ultrahigh vacuum system of DLSR. A special design of the photon absorber is required due to the compact physical design. Considering the toothed surface profile, cooling channel, and installation, we propose a photon absorber made of CuCrZr without additional positioning on the basis of the two-piece vertical absorber. The spot size and power of the radiation from the bending magnet with a bending angle of 2.74° are calculated. The thermal-mechanical simulations based on the finite element analysis method show acceptable results. The maximum thermal deformation, temperature, and stress are 0.05 mm, 80 ℃, and 20.8 MPa, respectively, indicating that the new absorber works in a safe range. The present study provides a critical theoretical basis for the design of the photon absorber in the front-end of HALF.