Results in Physics 23 (2021) 104072

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Enhanced absorption for MXene/Au-based metamaterials

Wei Cui a, b, Lingqiao Li a, Weiwei Xue a, Hui Xu c, 1, Zhihui He a, b, *, Zhimin Liu d, *
a
School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan’an University, Yan’an 716000, China
b
Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Intelligent Processing of Big Energy Data, Yan’an 716000, China
c
School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hunan University of Technology and Business, Changsha 410205, China
d
School of Science, East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang 330013, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Excellent and wide-band absorption is of great benefit for lots of applications such as photoelectric conversions,
Optical absorption photonics commutations as well as photovoltaic cells. Here, a simple MXene/Au-based metamaterial, consisting
Mxene of a thick layer of Ti3C2Tx and Au-Nanorod, is studied through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method for
Metamaterials
realization of tunable strong absorption in the visible and near infrared. The results show that the enhanced
Plasmonics
wide-band absorption with AMAX = 0.99 can be realized for the proposed MXene/Au-based metamaterial.
Moreover, the absorption can be effectively tuned by the structural parameters and polarization. These results
may play an important role for designing plasmonic absorbers.

Introduction Structure and discussion

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted enormous attention The schematic diagram of MXene/Au-based metamaterial is shown
due to its high charge carrier mobility and nano-scale thickness in the in Fig. 1(a). The substrate layer is SiO2, the middle layer is chosen to be
past years [1,2]. 2D materials also exhibit strong light-matter in­ Ti3C2Tx layer, and periodical Au-Nanorods are set on the surface of
teractions caused by the low loss and strong field confinement as well as MXene layer with period p = 0.5 μm. Here, h1 and w are the thickness
surface plasmons (SPs) [3,4]. Graphene, acting as the most popular 2D and width of Au-Nanorod, respectively. h2 is the thickness of the MXene
materials, have been studied in various aspects owing to its advantage of layer. The absorption responses are simulated by use of FDTD method. In
strong electric field constraint, low loss and so on in recent years [5,6]. the simulation, the simulation area is divided into uniform Yee cells
Among the recently discovered 2D nanomaterials, MXenes is a group of [11], the boundary conditions are perfectly matched layer and periodic
quasi-2D materials, which consist of nitrides carbides, carbonitrides and boundary conditions, and the plane wave is incidents from the top as
transition metals. Especially, Ti3C2Tx Mxene has lots of applications in shown in Fig. 1(a), θ is the angle between the polarization direction and
many fields such as molecular separation and sensing [7], catalysis [8], the x axis. The permittivities of Au and SiO2 are taken from the reference
perfect absorbers [9], and electromagnetic interference shielding [10]. book by Palik [12], and the Drude–Lorentz model for the permittivity of
However, the realization of a tunable perfect absorber is of great sig­ Ti3C2Tx layer can be well fitted in our paper expressed as follows [13]:
nificance to the development of MXenes-based photonic devices. Here, ( )
(ω )2 ω2p γ
we study the absorption of a simple MXene/Au-based metamaterial. εDrude = ε1 − p
+ i ε2 − 3 (1)
Firstly, the absorption performances are discussed in the three structure ω ω + ωγ 2
configurations cases, respectively. Then, the dependences of structural [ ]
parameters and polarization on the absorption properties are investi­ ω2p (ω20 − ω2 ) + iωω20 γ
gated in detail. εLorentz = ε3 1 + 2
(2)
(ω20 − ω2 ) + ω2 γ 2

where the plasma frequency ωp = 4.21 × 1014 rad/s, scattering losses γ

* Corresponding authors at: School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yan’an University, Yan’an 716000, China (Z. He). School of Science, East China Jiaotong
University, Nanchang 330013, China (Z. Liu).
E-mail addresses: kazh0722@126.com (Z. He), Liuzhimin2006@163.com (Z. Liu).
1
Co-first author.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2021.104072
Received 15 January 2021; Received in revised form 7 March 2021; Accepted 9 March 2021
Available online 13 March 2021
2211-3797/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
W. Cui et al. Results in Physics 23 (2021) 104072

Fig. 2. Absorption responses of the proposed MXene/Au-based metamaterial

when there is only MXene layer (a), only Au-Nanorod (b), and MXene layer and
Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram of the MXene/Au-based metamaterial. (b) The Au-Nanorod on the substrate (c), respectively. The inset figures show the
fitted permittivity for MXene layer. electrical fields for the corresponding case at the wavelength of 0.73 μm.

= 8.65 × 1014 rad/s, Lorentz pole frequency ω0 = 2.30 × 1015 rad/s, ε1

= 6.0, ε2 = 3.0, and ε3 = 0.2. The fitted permittivity for Ti3C2Tx MXene is
depicted in Fig. 1(b).
Here, we study the absorption responses of the proposed MXene/Au-
based metamaterial when the Au-Nanorod is absent with h2 = 0.15 μm
and θ = 0◦ as shown in Fig. 2(a). We can see that the maximum of ab­
sorption AMAX = 0.93 at the wavelength of 0.73 μm. The absorption for
the only Au Nanorod structure on the substrate with h1 = 0.05 μm, w =
0.4 μm, and θ = 0◦ are shown in Fig. 2(b). We can see that two relatively
small and narrow absorption peaks appear at 0.52 μm and 0.74 μm,
respectively. Fig. 2(c) shows the absorption in the visible and near
infrared when the periodical Au-Nanorods are set on the surface of
MXene layer with h1 = 0.05 μm, h2 = 0.15 μm, w = 0.4 μm, and θ = 0◦ .
Compared with the absorption for pure MXene layer in Fig. 2(a), obvious
absorption enhancement can be observed in the visible band caused by
the excited local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) on the surface of the
Au-Nanorod, and the sharply decrease in the near infrared band due to
the strong reflection properties by Au-Nanorod for the proposed MXene/
Au-based metamaterial. In addition, compared with the absorption for
pure Au-Nanorod in Fig. 2(b), the obvious wide-band absorption can be
realized for the MXene/Au-based metamaterial as shown in Fig. 2(c).
Thus, the proposed MXene/Au-based metamaterial not only can
enhance the absorption, but also increase the width of the absorption
band.
At last, the absorption as functions of w, h1, h2, and θ are investigated Fig. 3. (a) Absorption responses of the proposed MXene/Au-based meta­
in Fig. 3. From Fig. 3(a), we can see that the absorption peaks near the material as a function of w with h1 = 0.05 μm, h2 = 0.15 μm, and θ = 0◦ . (b)
Absorption responses as a function of h2 with w = 0.4 μm, h1 = 0.05 μm, and θ
wavelength of 0.53 μm and 1.12 μm show slight increases and red-shift
= 0◦ . (c) Absorption responses as a function of h2 with w = 0.4 μm, h1 = 0.05
as w increases, but the absorption decreases more drastically when w =
μm, and θ = 0◦ . (d) Absorption responses as a function of θ with h1 = 0.05 μm,
0.5 μm at long wavelength, which is caused the more strong reflection h2 = 0.15 μm, and w = 0.4 μm.
for the Au layer. Fig. 3(b) shows the absorption versus the thickness of
MXene layer when h2 increases. The results show that the maximum of
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
absorption AMAX can reach up to 0.99 at the wavelength of 0.55 μm
the work reported in this paper.
when h2 = 0.05 μm. Then, we study the dependence of thickness h1 on
the absorption of the proposed MXene/Au-based metamaterial as
Acknowledgment
depicted in Fig. 3(c). We can see that the effect of h1 is very weak. At last,
the absorption for the proposed metamaterials as a function of the po­
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
larization angle θ is discussed as shown in Fig. 3(d), we can see that the
of China (NSFC) (Grant No. 62065017).
right absorption show blue-shift as θ increases from 30◦ to 90◦ .
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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial

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