Zhaoxian Su

Terahertz dual-band metamaterial absorber based on graphene/MgF 2 multilayer structures

We design an ultra-thin terahertz metamaterial absorber based on graphene/MgF(2) multilayer stacking unit cells arrayed on an Au film plane and theoretically demonstrate a dual-band total absorption effect. Due to strong anisotropic permittivity, the graphene/MgF(2) multilayer unit cells possess a hyperbolic dispersion. The strong electric and magnetic dipole resonances between unit cells make the impedance of the absorber match to that of the free space, which induces two total absorption peaks in terahertz range. These absorption peaks are insensitive to the polarization and nearly omnidirectional for the incident angle. But the absorption intensity and frequency depend on material and geometric parameters of the multilayer structure. The absorbed electromagnetic waves are finally converted into heat and, as a result, the absorber shows a good nanosecond photothermal effect.

Soft and broadband infrared metamaterial absorber based on gold nanorod/liquid crystal hybrid with tunable total absorption

We design a soft infrared metamaterial absorber based on gold nanorods dispersed in liquid crystal (LC) placed on a gold film and theoretically investigate its total absorption character. Because the nanorods align with the LC molecule, the gold nanorods/LC hybrid exhibits different permittivity as a function of tilt angle of LC. At a certain tilt angle, the absorber shows an omnidirectional total absorption effect. By changing the tilt angle of LC by an external electric field, the total absorption character can be adjusted. The total absorption character also depends on the concentration, geometric dimension of nanorods, and defect of nanorod arrangement in LC. When the LC contains different size of gold nanorods, a broadband absorption can be easily realized. The characteristics including flexibility, omnidirectional, broadband and tunablility make the infrared metamaterial absorber possess potential use in smart metamaterial devices.

Graphene-based terahertz metasurface with tunable spectrum splitting.

We design a tunable terahertz metasurface, which consists of two different trapezoid graphene ribbons patterned in opposite directions on a gold film, separated by a thin dielectric spacer. The two kinds of graphene ribbons can cover a nearly 2π phase shift with high reflection efficiency in different spectral regions so that the metasurface can reflect different frequency waves to totally different directions. By changing the Fermi level of the graphene ribbons, the response frequency of the proposed metasurface can be adjusted, and as a result, tunable spectrum splitting can be realized. The present metasurface provides a powerful way to control terahertz waves and has potential applications in wide-angle beam splitters.

Electrically controllable soft optical cloak based on gold nanorod fluids with epsilon-near-zero characteristic.

We propose an electrically controllable soft optical cloak based on a fluid system containing gold nanorods, which can be transformed from isotropic to anisotropic epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) state at a certain incident optical frequency due to the orientation of gold nanorods under an external electric field stimulus. Both effective medium theory and 3D finite element simulation demonstrate that, at the ENZ point, the scattering from arbitrary-shaped objects can be nearly perfect suppressed. The loss and aspect ratio of gold nanorods have an effect on the ENZ point and scattering suppression behavior. When different aspect ratio of gold nanorods is employed, the fluid has multi ENZ points and exhibits perfect suppression of scattering from objects at multiple incident optical frequencies. Because the orientation of gold nanorods depends on the strength of applied external electric field, the permittivity of fluid can be adjusted by external electric field and, as a result, the ENZ state and scattering suppression of objects can be controlled. The flexible, controllable, and multi-frequency responsive characteristics make the optical cloak possess potential use in soft smart metamaterial devices.

Metasurface with interfering Fano resonance: manipulating transmission wave with high efficiency

We proposed a novel strategy to design a deep subwavelength metasurface with full 2π transmission phase modulation and high transmission efficiency by applying resonators with interfering Fano resonance. Theoretical investigation demonstrates that the transmission efficiency of the resonators depends on the direct transmission coefficient, direct reflection coefficient, and Q factor. When an impedance layer is added in the resonators, the direct transmission and direct reflection coefficients can be facilely manipulated so that the span of the transmission phase around the resonance frequency can be extended to 2π. As a result, we can continuously adjust the transmission phase from 0 to 2π through changing the geometric parameters of the resonators and construct a deep subwavelength metasurface with the resonators to manipulate the transmission wave with high efficiency. We also find that a layer of grating can be used as the impedance layer to change direct transmission and direct reflection in the actual design of the metasurface. The proposed strategy may provide effective guidance to design a deep subwavelength metasurface for controlling a transmitted wave with high efficiency.

Planar composite chiral metamaterial with broadband dispersionless polarization rotation and high transmission

We propose a planar composite chiral metamaterial (CCMM) by symmetrically inserting a metallic mesh between two layers of conjugated gammadion resonators. As the elaborate CCMM operates at off-resonance frequencies, it therefore presents low-loss and low-dispersion polarization rotation features. The results show that the proposed CCMM can achieve pure and dispersionless polarization rotation with efficient transmission for a linearly polarized wave within a broad bandwidth. This off-resonance CCMM overcomes the drawbacks of high transmission losses and highly dispersive polarization rotation that exist in the previous resonance-type chiral metamaterials and also exhibits more simplicity of fabrication than the three-dimensional CMMs. The intriguing properties greatly improve the performance of chiral metamaterials in controlling the polarization state of electromagnetic waves.

Electrically tunable metasurface based on Mie-type dielectric resonators

In this paper, we have designed a metasurface based on electrically tunable Mie-type resonators and theoretically demonstrated its tunable response to electromagnetic waves with varying frequency. The metasurface consists of disk-like ferroelectric resonators arrayed on a metal film and the upper surface of resonators is covered by ion gel film which is transparent for incident electromagnetic wave. Using the metal film and ion gel film as electrodes, the permittivity of the resonators can be adjusted by an external electric field and, as a result, the reflection phase of the resonators can be dynamically adjusted in a relatively wide range. By programmable controlling the electric field strength applied on resonators of metasurface, a 2π phase ramp can be realized and, thereby, the arbitrary reflection behavior of incident waves with varied frequency is obtained. Because of the tunability, this metasurface can also be used to design adaptive metasurface lens and carpet cloak.

Broadband angle- and permittivity-insensitive nondispersive optical activity based on planar chiral metamaterials

Because of the strong inherent resonances, the giant optical activity obtained via chiral metamaterials generally suffers from high dispersion, which has been a big stumbling block to broadband applications. In this paper, we propose a type of planar chiral metamaterial consisting of interconnected metal helix slat structures with four-fold symmetry, which exhibits nonresonant Drude-like response and can therefore avoid the highly dispersive optical activity resulting from resonances. It shows that the well-designed chiral metamaterial can achieve nondispersive and pure optical activity with high transmittance in a broadband frequency range. And the optical activity of multi-layer chiral metamaterials is proportional to the layer numbers of single-layer chiral metamaterial. Most remarkably, the broadband behaviors of nondispersive optical activity and high transmission are insensitive to the incident angles of electromagnetic waves and permittivity of dielectric substrate, thereby enabling more flexibility in polarization manipulation.