title: A new class of electrically tunable metamaterial terahertz modulators.
abstract: Switchable metamaterials offer unique solutions for efficiently manipulating electromagnetic waves, particularly for terahertz waves, which has been difficult since naturally occurring materials rarely respond to terahertz frequencies controllably. However, few terahertz modulators demonstrated to date exhibit simultaneously low attenuation and high modulation depth. In this letter we propose a new class of electrically-tunable terahertz metamaterial modulators employing metallic frequency-selective-surfaces (FSS) in conjunction with capacitively-tunable layers of electrons, promising near 100% modulation depth and < 15% attenuation. The fundamental departure in our design from the prior art is tuning enabled by self-gated electron layers that is independent from the metallic FSS. Our proposal is applicable to all possible electrically tunable elements including graphene, Si, MoS(2), oxides etc, thus opening up myriad opportunities for realizing high performance switchable metamaterials over an ultra-wide terahertz frequency range.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
authors.forename: Rusen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Berardi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sensale-Rodriguez
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Debdeep
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jena
authors.forename: Huili Grace
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Xing
mesh_terms: D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004581:Electronics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008420:Manufactured Materials / Q000528:radiation effects*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013685:Telecommunications / Q000295:instrumentation*; D055053:Terahertz Radiation