Terahertz metamaterials with VO2 cut-wires for thermal tunability

Qi-Ye Wen, Huai-Wu Zhang, Qing-Hui Yang, Yun-Song Xie, Kang Chen et al.

Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 021111 (2010); doi: 10.1063/1.3463466

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 APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 97, 021111 共2010兲

Terahertz metamaterials with VO2 cut-wires for thermal tunability

Qi-Ye Wen,a兲 Huai-Wu Zhang,b兲 Qing-Hui Yang, Yun-Song Xie, Kang Chen, and
Ying-Li Liu
State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science
and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, People’s Republic of China
共Received 27 May 2010; accepted 17 June 2010; published online 16 July 2010兲
An active terahertz 共THz兲 metamaterial with vanadium dioxide 共VO2兲 cut-wire resonators fabricated
on glass substrate was proposed, and THz time-domain spectroscopy was used to probe the
temperature-tuned electromagnetic properties. By thermal-triggering the insulator-metal phase
transition of VO2, THz transmission signals through the metamaterial exhibit a significant decline
with amplitude over 65%. Numerical simulations confirm the observations are due to the
metallization of the VO2 film with increasing temperature. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.
关doi:10.1063/1.3463466兴

Due to the geometrical scalability, metamaterials have
been demonstrated over a significant portion of the electro-
magnetic spectrum, from radio, microwave, terahertz 共THz兲,
to optical regimes. Active THz metamaterial devices, which
allow one to real-time control and manipulate of THz radia-
tion, are emerging as an important part in the THz field.
Several metamaterials based active devices have been devel-
oped as THz switches/modulators with the tunability strate-
gies of electrical controlling1 and optical pumping.2,3 How-
ever, almost all these pioneer devices are composed of arrays
of metal resonators printed on dielectric substrates. Their
tunability can only be realized by changing the properties,
usually the carrier density, of the substrate rather than the
metal structures.
Only very recently, resonators made of semiconductor4–6
or ferroelectronic materials7 were used to compose frequency
agile metamaterials. With these devices the tunability strate-
gies of magnetic and thermal controlling were demonstrated.
However, the fabrication difficulty and the operation condi-
tions such as the strong applied magnetic field or low tem-
perature set big obstacles for real applications.
In this work, we propose a planar metamaterial made of
vanadium dioxide 共VO2兲 cut-wires fabricated on silica-glass
substrate. Cut-wire structures are easy to design and fabri-
cate. Furthermore, theoretical8–11 and experimental works12
indicate that cut-wire resonators exhibit simple and broad-
band resonance as compared to the ordinary split ring reso-
nator. VO2 is known to exhibit a structural transition
from an insulating monoclinic phase to a metallic rutile
phase, which can be triggered thermally, electrically, and
optically.13 During this insulator-metal transition 共IMT兲, the
electrical, optical, and dielectric properties of VO2 undergo
drastic changes. For example, previous researches indicated
that the conductivity of VO2 film on silica glass changed by
as least three orders of magnitude accompanying the IMT
process.14,15 By this unique property, VO2 films have already
been demonstrated to tune the resonance frequencies of hy-
brid metamaterial in near IR 共Ref. 16兲 and THz regime.17
In this letter, the proposed VO2 hybrid metamaterial was
designed, fabricated, and measured. Large amplitude modu-
a兲
Electronic mail: qywen@163.com.
b兲
Electronic mail: hwzhang@uestc.edu.cn.
lation to the THz transmission over 65% was achieved by
simply thermal-triggering the IMT of the VO2 wires. Nu-
merical calculations, using the commercial software CST MI-
CROWAVE STUDIO, can explain the experimental observations,
as a result of the changes induced on the conductivity of VO2
resonator instead of the substrate.
The VO2 film was deposited on silica glass substrate by
reactive magnetron sputtering under a mixture Ar and O2
gas. The detailed preparation conditions were reported
elsewhere.14 The thickness of the VO2 film was detected by
scanning electron microscopy to be about 800 nm. X-ray
diffraction measurement was used to characterize the crystal
structure of the film, and it revealed a single-phase structure
of monoclinic VO2 with a preferred orientation of 共101兲.
Large resistivity changes with resistance-temperature hyster-
esis were observed as follows: the sheet resistance of the film
decreased from 17 280 ⍀ at 30 ° C to 76 ⍀ at 65 ° C. The
VO2 film was finally etched into cut-wires with 100 W
CF4 / O2 plasma to form a metamaterial, as shown in Fig. 1.
By assuming an ideal metal cut-wire resonator array on silica
glass, the structural parameters defined in the inset of Fig. 1
were optimized to achieve strong THz resonance, which are
l = 108 ␮m, w = 6 ␮m, d = 30 ␮m, and t = 13.5 ␮m. w rep-
resents the gap distance between the ends of two cut wires.
The actual parameters of the fabricated structure were
marked in the caption of Fig. 1, which exhibited slight de-
viations from the optimal size due to fabrication tolerances.
FIG. 1. 共Color online兲 SEM image of the VO2 cut-wire array with measured
size of l = 107.25 ␮m, w = 6.25 ␮m, d = 30.75 ␮m, and t = 13.25 ␮m. Inset
shows the schematic of the cut wire structure.

0003-6951/2010/97共2兲/021111/3/$30.00 97, 021111-1 © 2010 American Institute of Physics

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021111-2 Wen et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 021111 共2010兲

FIG. 2. 共Color online兲 Measured THz transmission curves for cut-wire FIG. 3. 共Color online兲 Simulated THz transmission spectra for cut-wire
metamaterial at different device temperature. metamaterial with different conductivity of VO2.

The THz transmission spectra were collected by using of a the size of the resonances. For example, experimentally there
THz time domain spectroscopy with a temperature control is only one broadband resonance below 1.2 THz, which is
stage. The tunability characteristics of the device were stud- consistent with the results reported by Dolling et al.12 How-
ied by varying the temperature of the samples. Since no free ever, the simulation results show a sharp resonance peak lo-
carrier would be possibly excited by heating the silica-glass, cated at about 0.9 THz in addition to the strong resonance at
the tunability of the devices can only be derived from the 0.6 THz. Our preliminary simulations, together with the pre-
VO2 resonators rather than the glass substrate. vious theoretical11 and experimental12 results, indicate that
In Fig. 2 we display measured transmission spectra for the additional peak will disappear if the gap distance be-
our cut-wire metamaterial in the frequency range of 0.2–1.65 tween the cut-wires 共e.g., w兲 is relative large. Thus, it is the
THz with device temperature increasing from 300 to 340 K. size shrinkage of the fabricated cut-wires gives rise to a large
The room temperature spectrum reveals a remarkable trans- w and that, to an extent, suppresses the dipole additional
parency of the metamaterials to the THz signal as follows: a resonance.
high THz transmission over 84% was obtained below 1 THz, The remarkable drop of THz transparency occurs in a
which is expected because both the insulating VO2 film and narrow temperature range from 320 to 340 K, where VO2
the silica glass are transparent to THz wave at low-frequency undergoes its IMT. In Fig. 4, the measured 共star兲 and simu-
region. It is reported that the silica glass has an absorption lated 共circle兲 transmission values at resonance peak were
plotted to match each other by properly arranging the axis of
coefficient below 0.62 cm−1 at 0.5 THz,18 and the insulating
␴V and temperature. It reveals that the conductivity of VO2
VO2 film is almost completely transparent to THz radiation
varies from 2 ⫻ 103 S / m to 2.7⫻ 105 S / m in the tempera-
below 1 THz.19 However, as the temperature is increased
ture range of 320–340 K.
VO2 switches toward its metallic phase, and we observe sig-
To understand how the variation in ␴V tunes the THz
nificant modifications to the THz signal. First, the transmis-
transmission, we simulated the electric field density and THz
sion amplitude decreases due to the increase in absorption
power flow of the metamaterials at 0.6 THz through CST
and reflection losses from VO2. Second, we observe a reso-
software. Figures 5共a兲–5共c兲 shows the field density and
nance which is not present at room temperature. When the
Figs. 5共d兲 and 5共e兲 the power flow with ␴V = 2 ⫻ 103 S / m,
temperature increases to 340 K, the spectrum curve shows a
5 ⫻ 104 S / m, and 2.7⫻ 105 S / m, respectively. When ␴V is
wide and strong resonance around 0.6 THz, and at this fre-
2 ⫻ 103 S / m, the electric field distributes almost homoge-
quency point the THz transmission drops to a minimum of
neously in the whole unit cell, and the THz power flows also
17%. Such a large modification amplitude over 65% has
penetrate through the metamaterial homogeneously with
never been reported before for the VO2 based active THz
very small power loss. This result confirms our experimental
devices.
Theoretical study of our metamaterial system was per-
formed utilizing the commercial software CST MICROWAVE
STUDIO. The simulations were performed by considering one
unit cell of the system embedded in a waveguide with elec-
tric and magnetic boundaries to support a constant profile
transverse electromagnetic wave. In the simulations, the re-
fractive index for the substrate was taken as 1.96 共Ref. 18兲
and the conductivity of the VO2 wires 共␴V兲 from 10 S/m to
2.7⫻ 105 S / m. Figure 3 shows the conductivity-dependent
transmission amplitude of the devices. With the increase in
␴V the transmission of the THz signals decrease accordingly.
Furthermore, a resonance around 0.6 THz appears when ␴V
increases beyond a critical value 共e.g., 35 000 S/m兲. It can be
seen that without any fitting parameters, the spectral posi-
tions of the resonances agree well with experimental results. FIG. 4. 共Color online兲 Comparison of measured and calculated transmission
There are, however, quantitative deviations in the shape and at resonance frequency of 0.6 THz.

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021111-3 Wen et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 021111 共2010兲

FIG. 5. 共Color online兲 The distribu-

tions of electric field density and
power flow of the metamaterials
at 0.6 THz with ␴V = 2 ⫻ 103 S / m,
5 ⫻ 104 S / m, and 2.7⫻ 105 S / m.

result that the insulating VO2 cut-wire metamaterial is highly We would like to thank Dr. X. B. Wei for helpful discus-
transparent to the THz wave. However, with the increase in sion. This work is supported by National Basic Research
␴V, the distributions of both the power flow and electric field Program of China 共973兲 共Grant No. 2007CB310407兲, NSFC
density become inhomogeneous. There is a field reinforce- 共Grant No. 60801023兲, and International S&T Cooperation
ment in the vicinity of wire ends but a zero-field region Program of China 共Grant No. 2007DFR10250兲.
共ZFR兲 around the middle part of the unit cell. When 1
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