Actively tunable and switchable terahertz metamaterials with multi-band perfect absorption and polarization conversion

Abstract

In this paper, we theoretically present and numerically demonstrate an actively tunable and switchable multi-functional metamaterial based on vanadium dioxide (VO₂) and graphene in the terahertz region. When VO₂ is in the metallic phase, the proposed metamaterial serves as a multi-band perfect absorber, which exhibits the characteristics of insensitive polarization and robust tolerance for variations of the incidence angle. When VO₂ is in the insulator phase, the proposed metamaterial acts as a polarization converter, which can simultaneously achieve perfect linear-to-linear and linear-to-circular polarization conversions. The simulation results show the cross-polarization conversion rate can reach ∼100% at the frequency region from 6.09 to 6.43 THz as well as 8.15 THz. Moreover, the ellipticity of linear-to-circular polarization conversion reaches ±1 at frequencies of 5.75 and 8.34 THz, respectively, which means the linear polarization waves can be completely converted into circular polarization waves. The proposed metamaterial provides new insight for the design of optoelectronic devices with multi-functionality in the terahertz region.