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A new design of a tunable broadband ultra-thin THz metamaterial absorber basing on vanadium dioxide

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new design of a tunable broadband ultra-thin terahertz (THz) metamaterial absorber (MMA). The lowest layer of the absorber is vanadium dioxide (VO2) square ring layer embedded in the intermediate dielectric layer. The tunability of the MMA can be realized by changing the temperature-dependent conductivity of VO2. A total effective absorption band of 0.9 THz and three absorption peaks at higher frequencies can be achieved, which is different from most MMAs whose absorption bands are only at lower frequencies. In transverse electric (TE) mode, the proposed MMA is insensitive to the change of angle of incident waves in a wide range, and the absorptivity increases with the angle of incident waves in transverse magnetic (TM) mode. At the same time, we illustrate the relationship between absorptivity and polarization angle and verify that the proposed MMA is insensitive to polarization angle to a certain extent. In addition, the thickness of the proposed MMA is only 6.85 μm with the most basic sandwich structure which is simpler than most of the same type of the MMAs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12075315 and 11675261).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Mathematics and Physics, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China

    Yunfan Wang, Xiongying Chao & Zhaoyang Chen

  2. PECVD Business Unit, Beijing NAURA Microelectronics Equipment Co., Ltd, No. 8 Wenchang Road, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Beijing, 100176, People’s Republic of China

    Yongjun Yu

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Wang, Y., Yu, Y., Chao, X. et al. A new design of a tunable broadband ultra-thin THz metamaterial absorber basing on vanadium dioxide. J Opt 52, 1269–1277 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12596-022-00977-y

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