Terahertz Metamaterial Absorbers

Abstract

Terahertz metamaterial absorbers (TMAs) can efficiently absorb electromagnetic wave in the range of 0.1–10 THz based on the tunable electromagnetic properties of artificially designed unit cells. TMAs can achieve perfect absorption, as well as broad band absorption. Specifically, TMAs can break the thickness limit of a device at a quarter wavelength, realizing ultra‐thin devices so as to facilitate integration with other systems. Accordingly, TMAs have high application value in communication, imaging, detection, security inspection, and other fields because of their characteristics of small size, perfect absorption, less restriction of natural materials, and tunable electromagnetic parameters. This review covers the fundamental principles and recent advances of TMAs, from the essential structural features of TMAs and working principle of various types of TMAs to the design and applications of corresponding structures, especially the TMAs that can be tuned by various approaches. The development trend and challenges of TMAs are briefly discussed too. It is envisioned that this review can help R&D of the future TMAs for real applications.

Metamaterials and Their Application in the Performance Enhancement of Reconfigurable Antennas: A Review

“…The most important factor when using a metamaterial absorber instead of a classical absorber is thickness, as it is 25 times smaller than that of other ones [ 157 , 158 , 159 , 160 ]. Recently, a metamaterial absorber was designed for future 6G application, operating on the terahertz (THz) frequency spectrum with numerous properties of multiband, wide band, and polarization diversity [ 161 , 162 ]. Afterward, a sensor-based metamaterial absorber was also introduced having advantages of low cost, high sensitivity, easy fabrication, and good quality factor.…”

Carbon-based ultrabroadband tunable terahertz metasurface absorber

“…[1][2][3][4] However, the lack of high-performance functional devices still remains one of the most important factors hindering the development of THz technology. 5,6 Interestingly, in the past few decades, the modern integrated circuit (IC) industry and microelectromechanical systems fabrication techniques involving photolithography have made possible the fabrication of microstructures with length scales that happen to fall within the range of THz wavelength. Thus, artificially structured elements arranged in a periodic manner, namely metamaterials or metasurfaces, which can achieve unusual and favorable electromagnetic responses and characteristics have been studied intensively in the past few decades.…”

“…Terahertz (THz) wave is electromagnetic radiation with a frequency range typically spanning from 0.1 to 10 THz, which has great application prospects in the fields of communication, sensing, spectroscopy, and imaging 1 – 4 However, the lack of high-performance functional devices still remains one of the most important factors hindering the development of THz technology 5 , 6 . Interestingly, in the past few decades, the modern integrated circuit (IC) industry and microelectromechanical systems fabrication techniques involving photolithography have made possible the fabrication of microstructures with length scales that happen to fall within the range of THz wavelength.…”

Tunable ultra-broadband terahertz metamaterial absorber based on vanadium dioxide strips

“…During the past two decades, the rapid development of highfrequency communication, medical, and sensing technologies attracted huge attention towards the terahertz spectrum of electromagnetic waves. 1,2 Various metamaterial structures, representing periodic arrays of subwavelength unit cells, have been proposed to ll the technological gap of devices working in this spectrum. In particular, numerous metastructures for the amplitude and phase manipulation of the electromagnetic waves with applications in perfect absorption, [3][4][5] sensing, [6][7][8] focusing, ltering, polarization conversion, [9][10][11][12][13][14] imaging, 15 and modulation 16,17 have been developed.…”