Broadband Tunable THz Absorption with Singular Graphene Metasurfaces

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 1006 - 1013
• Main Authors: Galiffi, Emanuele, Pendry, John B, Huidobro, Paloma A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 27-02-2018
• Subjects: surface plasmons; metamaterials; broadband absorber; tunable metasurfaces; singular structures; terahertz
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b07951

By exploiting singular spatial modulations of the graphene conductivity, we design a broadband, tunable THz absorber whose efficiency approaches the theoretical upper bound for a wide absorption band with a fractional bandwidth of 185%. Strong field enhancement is exhibited by the modes of this extended structure, which is able to excite a wealth of high-order surface plasmons, enabling deeply subwavelength focusing of incident THz radiation. Previous studies have shown that the conductivity can be modulated at GHz frequencies, which might lead to the development of efficient high-speed broadband switching by an atomically thin layer.