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Simple metamaterial structure enabling triple-band perfect absorber

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2015 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 375103

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 Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 (6pp) doi:10.1088/0022-3727/48/37/375103

Simple metamaterial structure enabling

triple-band perfect absorber
Nguyen Van Dung1, Bui Son Tung1, Bui Xuan Khuyen1, Young Joon Yoo1,
Young Ju Kim1, Joo Yull Rhee2, Vu Dinh Lam3 and YoungPak Lee1
1
  Department of Physics, Quantum Photonic Science Research Center and RINS, Hanyang University,
Seoul 133-791, Korea
2
  Sungkyunkwan University, 25-2 Sungkyunkwan-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea
3
  Institute of Material Science, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam

E-mail: [email protected]

Received 17 March 2015, revised 28 June 2015

Accepted for publication 21 July 2015
Published 21 August 2015

Abstract
Two resonators in metamaterial usually correspond only to two absorption peaks. In this report,
by breaking the symmetry, we could create multi-fundamental resonances at GHz frequencies in
both simulation and experiment. First, a dual-band metamaterial absorber (MA) was achieved for
4.6 and 10.6 GHz. Next, by modifying the relative position of inner square, the triple-band MA
was obtained with enhanced absorption properties. In addition, dependence on the polarization
of the incident electromagnetic (EM) wave was clarified. The mechanism is elucidated to be an
alteration of the coupling strength, which is made by changing the geometrical configuration of
the inner square and the outer ring. It is shown that our structural configuration can be applied to
the fields where the interaction with a wide range of EM waves exists or is needed.

Keywords: metamaterial, perfect absorber, electromagnetically-induced transparency,

symmetry breaking

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

In view of improved performance and a variety of real providing dual band, triple band and multi-band, have been
applications, such as sensors [1, 2], camouflage [3] and wire- developed, based on the aforementioned mechanism [13,
less communication [4], materials with high absorption have 15–17]. In 2014, Wang et al proposed a structure with two
been a domain which has attracted interest from scientists rings to create a triple band by breaking symmetry, but this
and engineers. Recently, in striking contrast to the conven- double ring structure has shown polarization dependence and
tional material, metamaterial absorbers (MAs) are rising as is without experiment verification [11].
promising artificial materials which provide peculiar elec- In this report, we present the numerical design and the
tromagnetic (EM) properties, not only for EM absorbers but experimental demonstration of dual- and triple-band nearly-
for negative permittivity and/or permeability etc. The field perfect MM absorbers using the simple sandwich structure.
of metamaterials (MMs) is growing rapidly owing to devel- The unit cell of front patterns consists of inner and outer
oping desired types of manufacturing materials, which work squares. At first, dual-band MM absorber was achieved at
at radio, microwave and, later, optical frequencies [5–9]. 4.6 and 10.6 GHz with absorption of 99.5% and 77.2%,
Landy et al proposed a MM structure manipulating the effec- respectively. Next, by changing the relative position of
tive parameters to be impedance-matched with the outside inner square, dual-band MM absorber was obtained with the
environment and for the proper loss enhancement [10]. In absorption enhancement of the second peak. When the dis-
the past several years, MM absorbers have been suggested placement of inner square, d, is big enough, the second peak
for GHz, THz and optical frequency regimes [11–14]. It is is separated into two peaks. The influence of polarization
clear that MM absorber is due the EM resonances and that and incident angle of EM wave is also examined, to show
the number of absorption peaks depends on the number of that our structure is polarization- and incidence-insensitive
resonant modes of the structure. Therefore, several structures to the EM wave.

0022-3727/15/375103+6$33.00 1 © 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd  Printed in the UK

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 N Van Dung et al

Figure 1.  (a) Schematic of the MM absorber and polarization configuration of the incident EM wave, (b) Single unit cell of the designed
MM absorber and (c) real sample.

Our simple MM-absorber design is composed of a copper- The simulated and the measured absorption of the dual-
patterned layer at the front and continuous copper plane at band MM absorber is illustrated in figure 2(a). As aforemen-
the back, separated by a dielectric layer of FR-4. As shown tioned, two simulated peaks are obtained at 4.6 and 10.6 GHz
in figures  1(a) and (b) the optimized unit cell is chosen as with absorption of 99.5% and 77.2%, respectively. To be more
periodic dimensions of p   =   10 mm in the x–y plane, and the detailed, the surface currents are illustrated in figure 2(b). One
thickness of dielectric layer is ts   =   0.8 mm in the propagation can clearly see that the peak at the lower frequency is mainly
of EM wave, z direction. The front layer consists of an inner contributed by the outer square ring, and the inner square
square with the length of w   =   6.2 mm, surrounded by an outer is mainly responsible for the peak at higher frequency. The
square ring with width and inner length of t   =   0.45 mm and second peak located at 10.6 GHz is easier to elucidate, which
l1   =   8.2 mm, respectively. results simply from the magnetic response of the inner square:
The aforementioned geometrical parameters have been not only the strong anti-parallel surface currents between the
optimized by the commercial software CST Microwave inner square and continuous copper plane, but also rather
Studio [18]. In the simulation, the conductivity of copper was weak anti-parallel currents between inner square and outer
σ = 5.8 × 107 S m−1, and the FR-4 was simulated with a dielec- square ring. For the first absorption peak at 4.6 GHz with high
tric function of ε = 4.3 × (1 + 0.025i ). The frequency domain absorption, the induced currents are mostly concentrated on
solver was carried out with the periodic boundary conditions the outer square ring. The strong induced currents at two sides
in the x–y plane and open for the z-direction to extract the of the outer square ring move in the opposite way to those
S parameters. Owing to the polarized incident EM wave, the in the corresponding continuous plane. Therefore, the first
electric and the magnetic fields were parallel to x and y axes, peak is a result of the magnetic resonance. At the same time, it
respectively. Since transmission is eliminated by the contin- should be mentioned that the strong parallel induced currents
uous copper plane, which is much thicker than the penetra- between two neighboring unit cells, which leads to a strong
tion depth of copper at GHz frequency, then the absorption electric response. Then, the first peak is fully understood to
can be calculated by A(ω) = 1 − R(ω) = 1− ∣S11(ω)∣2, where be due to the magnetic and the electric resonances at the same
A(ω), R(ω) are absorption and reflection coefficients, respec- frequency.
tively. For the experimental process, the reflection spectra As reported, breaking the symmetry of a particular structure
(∣S11(ω)∣2) were measured in an anechoic chamber using in MM allows us to access different resonant modes, which
Agilent E8364B network analyzer, which connected to line- cannot be excited with symmetric configuration [20–22].
arly-polarized microwave standard-gain horn antennas [19]. In our paper, even with the disadvantage of the low absorp-
At first, two antennas were placed at a proper distance (2.0 m tion for the second peak, we intend to change the coupling
from the sample to the middle point of two horn antennas) to between two resonators (inner square and outer square ring)
neglect the overlapping effect between incident and reflected by changing the relative distances between them to seek the
waves with the incident angle of 5°. The calibration was per- effect of symmetry breaking, leading us to higher absorption
formed by replacing the sample (figure 1(c)) with a same and more resonant modes.
size copper board as a perfect conductor. In the experiment The inner square shifts from the corner by displacement d
of changing the incident angle, the distance between the two in EM polarization as in figures 3(a) and (b). The evolution of
horn antennas and the distance between sample and two horn absorption spectrum according to d is depicted in figures 3(c)
antennas were changed but still avoiding the overlapping and (d). The first absorption peak, as indicated to be due to
effect. the magnetic resonance and the electric response of outer

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J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 N Van Dung et al

Figure 2.  (a) Simulated and experimental frequency-dependent

absorption for the symmetric MM absorber. (b) Induced surface
currents at the two resonance frequencies. Black arrows show
directions in the surface-current distribution.

square ring, shows a stable property even when d is increased.

In other words, the first peak is nearly insensitive to the dis-
placement of inner square. On the contrary, the second peak
is significantly enhanced when d is increased. It is clearly
seen that, for d   =   0.4 mm, both absorption peaks are grown Figure 3.  (a) Design of the unit cell for asymmetric MM absorber.
up to be higher than 90%, and the absorption peak at higher (b) Photo of the fabricated sample. (c) and (d) Simulated and
frequency with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of experimental frequency-dependent absorption for the asymmetric
MM absorber.
10%, in comparison with the symmetric structure (FWHM of
5%), shows broader absorption. When displacement d reaches
0.6 mm, the second peak starts to be separated into two peaks. structure of d   =   0), figure  4(a) shows the induced electric
As d is further increased, two peaks are clearly separated and, field, reaffirmed that the low and high absorption peaks are
at d   =   0.8 mm, our structure shows a triple-band absorption relevant, respectively, to the outer square ring and the inner
(TBA) at 4.6, 10.2 and 10.8 GHz with absorption higher than square. In case of asymmetric structure (d   =   0.8 mm), the first
94% for all the peaks. peak is nearly unchanged, but the induced electric field moves
We now clarify the resonances in order to further inter- more or less along the ring within the thickness (t   =   0.45 mm)
pret the mechanism of our TBA structure. Figure 4 presents of the outer square ring. At the same time, original single band
the behavior of EM wave to explain how it is absorbed in the at higher frequency is replaced by dual bands. The induced
MM slab at each resonance. At the beginning (the symmetric electric field of symmetric structure is positioned only in the

3
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 N Van Dung et al

Figure 4.  EM properties at each resonance: distributions of inducted field Ez of (a) symmetric structure (corresponding to the solid-black
line in figure 3(d)) and (b) asymmetric structure with d   =   0.8 mm (corresponding to the dotted-blue line in figure 3(d)). (c) Side view of the
streamlines of the Poynting vector at two new resonances.

vertical direction (10.6 GHz in figure  4(a)), which leads to

a single absorption peak. As shown in figure  4(b), for d of
0.8 mm, the induced electric field is degenerated into two diag-
onal modes on the inner square, resulting in two absorption
peaks at 10.2 and 10.8 GHz. To elucidate the mechanism of
two new absorption peaks, we show the completely 3-dimen-
sional Poynting trajectory in figure  4(c). It is clear that the
energy comes out from the transmitter port into the structure
and is dissipated inside the dielectric layer. To summarize this
paragraph, by simply changing the distance between inner
square and outer square ring, dual/triple absorption bands
could be controlled.
To understand the phenomenon of how symmetry
breaking leads to splitting of the absorption peaks, we would
like to explain under the analogous three-level system in Figure 5.  Three-level system of EIT.
quantum electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)
[23, 24]. Under the similar circumstance, the three-level the normal incident wave, at 10.6 GHz, the inner square is
system, which is depicted in figure  5, includes a ground coupled with an excitation wave, giving rise to the absorp-
state ∣0⟩ and two upper states ∣1⟩ and ∣2⟩ . With respect to tion peak, called the bright element. This corresponds to

4
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 N Van Dung et al

Figure 6.  (a) Simulated and (b) experimental absorption spectra Figure 7.  (a) Simulated and (b) experimental absorption spectra
according to polarization angle. according to incident angle.

EIT to quantitatively analyze the coupling effect. The inter-

the dipole-allowed transition from ∣0⟩ to ∣1⟩. On the other action between two oscillators can be described by the fol-
hand, the outer square ring cannot be excited at 10.6 GHz lowing equations [24].
and becomes the dark element or the dipole-forbidden tran-
sition of ∣0⟩ to ∣2⟩. Therefore, only single peak is observed at x¨1(t ) + γ1x˙1(t ) + ω02x1(t ) + τ 2x2(t ) = q1E0,
(1)
10.6 GHz. Nevertheless it is suggested that, the dark element
can be strongly coupled with the bright element by near- x¨2(t ) + γ2x˙2(t ) + ω02x2(t ) + τ 2x1(t ) = q2E0 = 0,
(2)
field coupling between them, which causes the splitting of where x1 and x2 are the amplitudes of oscillator 1 (bright
the resonance peak. By breaking structural symmetry, that is, mode) and oscillator 2 (dark mode), γ1 and γ2 are the losses of
at d   =   0.8 mm, the initial absorption peak splits into dual- oscillators 1 and 2, respectively. τ is the coupling coefficient
band absorption at 10.2 GHz and 10.8 GHz. The observed describing the coupling strength between two oscillators, ω0 is
dual-band absorption is the result of coupling between the the resonance frequency of oscillator 1, and q1, q2 are the cou-
dipole (the inner square) and the quadrupole (the outer pling strength of bright and dark modes with incident wave,
square ring). The absorption mechanism is clarified by the respectively. Here, q2   =   0. According to equations  (1) and
electric-field distribution in figure 4. When d   =   0, the elec- (2), two stop bands are obtained [24]:
tric response of the outer square ring is weak at 10.6 GHz,
no coupling effect is observed. When d   =   0.8 mm, as shown ω− = ω02 − τ 2
(3)
in figure 4(b), a electric quadrupole is formed and strongly
coupled with the dipole in the inner square by the near-field and
coupling. Consequently, the EM field is trapped at 10.2 and
ω+ = ω02 + τ 2 ,
(4)
10.8 GHz. The harmonic oscillator model is widely used in

5
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 48 (2015) 375103 N Van Dung et al

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