A broadband,polarisation-insensitive and wide-angle coplanar terahertz metamaterial absorber

Broadband terahertz metamaterial absorbers have attracted considerable attention due totheir significant potential for practical applications. These absorbers are usuallystacked in several differently shaped or sized subunits to form a unit cell, making theirfabrication quite troublesome. A simple design for broadband metamaterial absorbers istherefore urgently needed. Herein, we propose a coplanar broadband andpolarisation-insensitive perfect absorber formed by two patterned square metallic ringswith a dielectric layer on top of a metallic ground plane. The full width at half maximum(FWHM) of the device can be up to 42% (with respect to the central frequency), which is 2times greater than that of a single-layered structure. This property is retained well fora very wide range of incident angles. The two patterned square rings resonating atdifferent but similar frequencies leads to the broadband absorption. Moreover, ahybridised resonance model is proposed to analyse the origin of the resonance bandwidth.The results of this metamaterial absorber design appear to be very promising for solarcell, detection and imaging applications.     

多频与宽频超材料吸收器

提出了多频与宽频超材料吸收器结构模型, 该吸收器是由刻蚀在介质基板两面的金属图案组成, 其正面是由不同大小的金属铜圆片和金属铜圆环结构组合而成, 反面完全覆盖金属铜. 由于不同几何大小的圆片或圆环结构的谐振频率不同, 且是相互独立的. 因此通过将两种不同几何大小的圆片与圆环结构组合, 使其在不同频率谐振, 便可得到双频吸收器; 而将三种不同几何大小的圆片和圆环结构组合便可得到三频吸收器; 同理可得到四频吸收器. 同时, 通过研究吸收器的电场分布, 验证了不同几何大小的圆片或圆环结构在不同频率谐振. 若通过优化组合圆片和圆环结构, 使其谐振频率紧密相连则可得到宽频吸收器. 关键词： 吸收器 超材料 多频 宽频     

一种基于石墨烯的超宽带吸波器

隐身技术对降低飞行器目标的雷达散射截面、提高飞行器目标的生存能力具有重要的意义和价值, 而在飞行器目标上引入吸波器结构是一种重要的隐身手段. 然而, 目前已有吸波器的研究主要集中在单频或多频窄带方面. 为了拓展吸波器工作频带, 基于石墨烯材料提出了一种工作于S/C波段的新型超宽带吸波器模型单元, 其中包含一个用石墨烯材料设计的方圆形双环周期结构. 调节石墨烯的表面阻抗, 使得吸收率超过90%的频带范围为2.1-9.0 GHz, 相对带宽约为124%, 实现了超宽带的吸波特性; 鉴于模型的高度对称性, 提出的吸波器模型表现出对入射波极化不敏感的吸波特性; 在不改变模型结构情况下, 调节石墨烯的静态偏置电场, 亦可调控吸波器谐振在2.0-9.0 GHz频带范围内的任意频率点处, 且达到超过99%的吸收效果. 最后采用等效电路模型方法和波的干涉理论对其吸波机理进行深入研究与分析: 从等效电路角度来讲, 方形和圆形环分别引入高、低吸波谐振频率, 二者优化叠加拓展了吸波带宽; 从干涉理论方面来看, 吸波器表面处的首次反射波与透射波的多次出射波形成较强的干涉相消现象, 有效减少了吸波器的反射回波.     

Narrow and Dual-Band Tunable Absorption of a Composite Structure with a Graphene Metasurface

A tunable absorber, composed of a graphene ribbon on two layers of TiO_2-Au between two slabs of dielectric material all on a metal substrate, is designed and numerically investigated. The absorption of the composite structure varies with the geometrical parameters of the structure and the physical parameters of graphene at mid-infrared frequencies. The numerical simulation shows that a near-perfect absorption with single and dual bands can be achieved in a certain frequency range. We also analyze the electric and surface current distributions to study the dual-band absorber. The results show that the absorber can be tuned by the chemical potential and electron-phonon relaxation time of graphene, and electromagnetically induced transparency phenomenon can be obtained. The results of this study may be beneficial in the fields of infrared communication, perfect absorbers,sensors and filters.     

Ultrabroadband strong light absorption based on thin multilayered metamaterials

Light absorbers have drawn intensive attention as crucial components for solar‐energy harvesting, thermal emission tailoring, modulators, etc. However, achievement of light absorbers with wide bandwidth remains a challenge thus far. Here, a thin, unprecedentedly ultrabroadband strong light absorber is proposed and experimentally demonstrated, which consists of periodic taper arrays constructed by an alumina–chrome multilayered metamaterial (MM) on a gold substrate. This MM can change from a hyperbolic material to an anisotropic dielectric material at different frequency ranges and the special material features are the fundamental origins of the ultrabroadband absorption. The absorber is quite insensitive to the incident angle, and can be insensitive to the polarization. One two‐dimensional periodic array of 400‐nm height MM tapers is fabricated. The measured absorption is over 90% over almost the entire solar spectrum, reaching an average level of 96%, and remains high (above 85%) even in the longer‐wavelength range till 4 μm. The proposed absorbers open up a new avenue to realize broadband thin light‐harvesting structures.     

A simple design of ultra-broadband and polarization insensitive terahertz metamaterial absorber

Ultra-broadband metamaterial absorbers have attracted considerable attention due to their great prospect for practical applications. These absorbers are usually stacked by many (no. <20) different shaped or sized subunits in a unit cell, making it quite troublesome to be fabricated. Simple design for ultra-broadband absorber is urgently necessary. Herein, we propose a simple design of ultra-broadband and polarization insensitive terahertz metamaterial absorber based on a double-layered composite structure on a metallic board, and each layer consists of two sets of different sized square metallic plates. Greater than 90 % absorption is obtained across a frequency range of 0.85 THz with the central frequency around 1.60 THz. The relative absorption bandwidth of the device is greatly improved to 53.3 %, which is much larger than previous results. The mechanism of the ultra-broadband absorber is attributed to the overlapping of four closely resonance frequencies. The proposed metamaterial absorber has potential applications in detection, imaging and stealth technology.     

基于超材料的偏振不敏感太赫兹宽带吸波体设计

本文设计了一种基于超材料的偏振不敏感太赫兹宽带吸波体.吸波体包含两层金属和一层中间介质,表面金属层每一个周期单元由五种尺寸接近的金属块按照相邻不同的规律排列成5×5的方形阵列.各种尺寸金属块分别产生单峰谐振吸收,五个谐振吸收峰相互靠近从而产生宽带吸收.通过研究吸波体表面电流和电场z分量分布情况可知,入射太赫兹能量的吸收主要是由y方向上电场引起的电偶极子振荡和z方向上磁场引起的磁极化产生,而且金属层的欧姆损耗起主要作用.仿真结果表明,吸波体吸收率在80%以上的带宽约为1.2 THz,最高吸收率可达98.7%,半峰全宽(FWHM)为1.6 THz,该宽带吸波体的厚度约为中心波长的二十分之一,对偏振方向不敏感,且能实现大角度吸收,在太赫兹频段的电磁隐身、测辐射热探测器以及宽带通信等领域有潜在的应用价值.     

基于石墨烯和二氧化钒的太赫兹宽带可调谐超材料吸收器

太赫兹超材料吸收器作为一种重要的太赫兹功能器件,被广泛应用于生物医学传感、电磁隐身、军用雷达等多个领域.但这种传统的超材料吸收器结构具有可调谐性差、功能单一、性能指标不足等缺点,已经无法满足复杂多变的电磁环境的要求,因此可调谐超材料吸收器逐渐成为了太赫兹功能器件领域的研究热点.为实现超材料吸收器吸收特性的调谐,通常从调...     

A design of ultra-broadband metamaterial absorber

In this paper, an ultra-broadband, wide-angle polarization-insensitive metamaterial absorber is designed at microwave frequencies. The absorber consists of a periodic array of metallic strips with the lumped resistances fabricated on a dielectric substrate with a ground plane. The proposed absorber is single-layered and symmetric, thus leading to very thin and polarization-insensitive characteristics. According to the surface current distributions, the proposed absorber can operate three resonant modes including two dipole resonances and an LC resonance. By adjusting the geometry and lumped resistances of the structure, three resonant modes can be effectively connected together, and thus an ultra-broadband response can be realized. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed absorber produces a good absorption above 80% at normal incidence and above 60% at oblique incidence with the incident angle smaller than 45° between 6 and 16.2 GHz.     

太赫兹波段电磁超材料吸波器折射率传感特性

太赫兹超材料吸波器作为一类重要的超材料功能器件,除了可以实现对入射太赫兹波的完美吸收外,还可以作为折射率传感器实现对周围环境信息变化的捕捉与监测.通常从优化表面金属谐振单元结构和改变介质层材料和形态两个方面出发,改善太赫兹超材料吸波器的传感特性.为深入研究中间介质层对太赫兹超材料吸波器传感特性的影响,本文基于金属开口谐振环阵列设计实现了具有连续介质层、非连续介质层和微腔结构的3款太赫兹超材料吸波器,并对其传感特性与传感机理进行了深入研究.结果表明,为了提高太赫兹超材料吸波器的折射率灵敏度、最大探测范围等传感特性,除了可以选用相对介电常数较小的材料作为中间介质层外,还可以改变中间介质层的形态,进而减小中间介质层对谐振场的束缚,增强谐振场与被测分析物之间的耦合.与传统的具有连续介质层的太赫兹超材料吸波器相比,具有非连续介质层和微腔结构的超材料吸波器具有更优越的传感特性,可应用于对待测分析物的高灵敏度、快速检测,在未来的传感领域具有更加广阔的应用前景.     

Vibration control of two degrees of freedom system using variable inertia vibration absorbers: Modeling and simulation

Variable inertia vibration absorbers (VIVA) are previously used for the vibration control of single degree of freedom (dof) primary systems. The performance of such absorbers is studied in many investigations. This paper presents the dynamic modeling and simulation of a proposed modified design of such VIVA’s for the vibration control of two dof primary systems. Lagrange formulation is used to obtain its dynamic model in an analytical form. This model, which is highly nonlinear, is used to develop a computational algorithm to study the absorber performance characteristics. This algorithm is programmed and simulated in Matlab. The obtained results are numerically verified using SAMS2000 software. The effect of mass and stiffness of the proposed VIVA on its performance and tuning is discussed. An optimization algorithm is developed to select the best absorber parameters for vibration suppression of a specific primary system. The obtained results show a good agreement with those obtained using similar techniques. In addition, a linearized model of VIVA dynamics is developed, tested and simulated for the same data used in its nonlinear model. The relative deviation between results of the linear and nonlinear models is less than 1%, which confirms the realistic use of this linearized model. The experimental testing and verification of the simulation results of the proposed VIVA is the subject of another paper.     

Broadband metamaterial absorber on a single-layer ultrathin substrate

In this article, a broadband metamaterial microwave absorber on a low-cost FR-4 Epoxy substrate is proposed. The unit cell of the absorber consists of a staircase shape metallic patch placed on the top of the metal-backed ultrathin dielectric substrate having a thickness of 1.9 mm (0.07 λ₀). The absorption of more than 90% is achieved with this proposed low profile single-layer microwave absorber throughout the operation band from 8.86 to 15.5 GHz. The performance is analyzed for different values of incident angle, polarization angle, substrate height, and dielectric constant. The surface current and the power loss density at the top and bottom planes at the two absorption peaks of 9.46 and 13.90 GHz are also analyzed to elaborate the absorption mechanism of the structure. Experimental result closely follows the simulated one. The broadband characteristics of the design with relative absorption bandwidth (RAB) of 54.51% at both TE and TM polarizations of incident wave for a wide incident angles makes it versatile for applications in the X and Ku bands of microwave frequencies. The proposed work is very compact (unit cell size: 0.22 λ₀) with ultrathin substrate height (0.07 λ₀) and giving RAB performance of 54.51% comparable with that of others. Thus with this single-layer low-cost substrate material a broadband absorber is achieved.     

Optical metamaterial absorber based on leaf-shaped cells

We present the model of an infrared metamaterial absorber composed of metallic leaf-shaped cells, dielectric substrate, and continuous metallic film. Numerical simulation confirms an absorptivity of 99.3% at the infrared frequency of 126.7 THz with this metamaterial model. The proposed metamaterial absorber could be fabricated with an electrochemical deposition technique. Our simulated results show the absorption feature of this metamaterial absorber could be well manipulated with different incident angles and radiation modes. The optical metamaterial absorber proposed in this paper has potential applications such as infrared imaging devices, thermal bolometers, wavelength-selective radiators, and optical bistable switches.     

Impedance theory of sound scattering and absorption: A constrained best absorber and the efficiency bounds of passive scatterers and absorbers

A constrained best absorber is defined as a body that absorbs the maximum incident sound power among all of the passive bodies of the same geometry under the condition that the sound power scattered by it is fixed. By solving a variational problem, the surface impedances of the constrained best absorber are determined and the efficiency bounds of passive scatterers and absorbers are found. The range of all the allowable values of the absorption and scattering powers of an arbitrary passive body is represented graphically. For the boundaries of this range, analytical formulas are derived. Some of the properties of constrained best absorbers are considered, and illustrative examples are presented.     

Oblique incidence sound absorption of parallel arrangement of multiple micro-perforated panel absorbers in a periodic pattern

The sound absorption performance of a micro-perforated panel (MPP) absorber array at oblique incidence and in diffuse field is investigated both numerically and experimentally. The basic module of the MPP absorber array consists of four parallel-arranged MPP absorbers with different cavity depths, and the whole MPP absorber array is created by arranging the basic modules in a periodically repeating pattern. Results show that the influence of incidence angle mainly lies in two aspects. First, the parallel absorption mechanism breaks down at lower frequencies at oblique incidence than at normal incidence due to the non-compactness of the resonating MPP absorber, which becomes non-compact if the time delay of incident wave across it is comparable to or larger than π/2. Second, the equivalent acoustic impedance of the MPP varies with respect to incidence angle which in turn changes the sound absorption performance of the MPP absorber array. Influence of the azimuthal angle is insignificant. Because of mutual influence among the member MPP absorbers, the normal incidence sound absorption of the MPP absorber array can be noticeably different from that of the basic module tested in impedance tube. The measured sound absorption coefficients of a prototype specimen in reverberation room compare well with the numerical predictions. The extra sound absorption due to diffraction of sound at the free edges of test specimen is the most efficient around 500 Hz.     

Dual-function terahertz metasurface based on vanadium dioxide and graphene

A dual-function terahertz metasurface based on VO₂ and graphene is proposed in this paper. It consists of a gold layer embedded with VO₂ patches, a SiO₂ spacer layer, a VO₂ layer, graphene and a SiO₂ spacer substrate. When the bottom VO₂ layer is in the metallic state, the designed metasurface can achieve absorption. When the top VO₂ patches are in the metallic state, the proposed metasurface can be used as a single-band absorber with terahertz absorptance of 99.7% at 0.736 THz. When the top VO₂ patches are in the insulating state, the designed structure behaves as a dual-band absorber with an absorptance of 98.9% at 0.894 THz and 99.9% at 1.408 THz. In addition, the absorber is polarization insensitive and keeps good performance at large angles of incidence. When the bottom VO₂ is in an insulating state, the metasurface shows electromagnetically induced transparency. The transparent window can be dynamically regulated by controlling the chemical potential of graphene. The proposed metasurface exhibits the advantages of terahertz absorption, electromagnetically induced transparency and dynamic control, which provides more options for the design of terahertz devices in the future.     

A polarization insensitive dual-band tunable graphene absorber at the THz frequency

A dual-band and polarization insensitive tunable graphene absorber for THz frequency has been proposed and investigated. The absorber consists of a square graphene ring with a slit at the middle of each side separated from a metallic mirror by a dielectric spacer. Two distinct absorption peaks of 99.87% and 97.82% are observed at 3.92 THz and 6.96 THz, respectively. In addition, the distributions of electric field intensity are also presented for well-recognized the physical origin of such perfect absorption phenomenon. Furthermore, the influence of geometric parameters on the dual-band absorption properties is studied in detail to provide a useful guidance for practical fabrication. The perfect dual-band absorption properties can also be dynamically tuned through the change of the Fermi energy along with large angle insensitivity, both are interesting for real application. The proposed tunable graphene absorber should found potential applications in areas including sensors, modulators, and detectors.     

Modal properties and stability of centrifugal pendulum vibration absorber systems with equally spaced,identical absorbers

This work develops an analytical model of centrifugal pendulum vibration absorber systems with equally spaced, identical absorbers and uses it to investigate the structure of the modal vibration properties. The planar model admits two translational and one rotational degrees-of-freedom for the rotor and a single arclength degree-of-freedom for each absorber. The gyroscopic effects from rotor rotation are taken into account. Examination of the associated eigenvalue problem reveals well-defined structure of the vibration modes resulting from the cyclic symmetry of the absorbers. The vibration modes are classified into rotational, translational, and absorber modes. Characteristics of each mode type are analytically proved. The effects of the absorber tuning order on the modes are derived. The critical speeds and flutter instability of the system are studied numerically and analytically.     

Design and realization of a magnetic-type absorber with a broadened operating frequency band

In this paper, we present an efficient method to obtain absorbers with broadened operating frequency bands. They are accomplished by using conventional magnetic absorbing materials (MAMs) in the forms of array and mesh structures, which are similar to those in the case of a frequency selective surface. The proposed approach is verified not only by simulations but also by experimental results under the normal incidence at microwave frequencies. Moreover, the wideband absorber is lighter than the conventional magnetic absorber. These results indicate that our proposed absorbing structures can be used for designing good electromagnetic absorbers.     

Generation of wide-bandwidth pulse with graphene saturable absorber based on tapered fiber

Wide-bandwidth pulses were generated with a dispersion-managed erbium-doped passively mode-locked fiber laser based on a graphene saturable absorber. The graphene saturable absorber was composed of a tapered fiber deposited with graphene fabricated by liquid-phase exfoliation. The output pulse had a 3-dB bandwidth of 13.6 nm, which is the widest spectrum ever achieved with graphene-tapered-fiber saturable absorbers.