Switchable Wideband Terahertz Absorber Based on Refractory and Vanadium Dioxide Metamaterials

Abstract

Achieving actively tunable metamaterial absorption is a significant development direction. Phase-transition materials have attracted growing interest for the use in nanophotonics owing to their flexibility. In this work, we firstly demonstrate a wideband terahertz refractory absorber that achieves more than 90% absorptance in the range of 1.71 - 3.31 THz. The metal composing the structure is refractory metal, which could function in high-temperature conditions and complex electromagnetic environment. Then, we incorporate phase-change material vanadium dioxide (VO2) film to this refractory absorber, realizing high reflection of more than 93% in the metallic state, while the wideband perfect absorption peak over 98% is obtained in the insulating state. Calculated results show that metamaterial absorber obtains switchable functions. Furthermore, the tunable absorber has polarization-insensitive behavior. So, our designed absorber with dynamic tunable characteristics provides flexibility to adjust the absorption performance and has significant value in application. The proposed architecture offers a novel method for creating dynamic and multi-functional photonic devices in phase-change materials.