Design

Designing a Tunable Terahertz

Metamaterial Absorber
Project report submitted
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of

Bachelor of Technology

By

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (BHU), Varanasi
(June,2020)

IIT (BHU) Varanasi

IIT (BHU) Varanasi II
 Approval Sheet

This project report entitled “ Designing a Tunable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber”, by

the following student(s) is approved for the degree of Bachelor of Technology, Electronics

Engineering.

R.A.D.S.Abhijith(17095052)

Banoth Mahesh (17095026)

Examiners
________________________
________________________
________________________
________________________
________________________

Supervisor

Dr. Somak Bhattacharyya

Head

IIT (BHU) Varanasi

 Certificate

It is certified that the work contained in the project report titled “Designing a Tunable
Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber”, by the following student(s) has been carried out under
my supervision and that this work has not been submitted elsewhere for a degree.

Name(s) of student(s)

R.A.D.S.Abhijith(17095052)

Banoth Mahesh (17095026)

Dr. Somak Bhattacharyya

Electronics Engineering
IIT (BHU) Varanasi
June, 2020.

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 Declaration

I declare that this written submission represents my ideas in my own words and where others'
ideas or words have been included, I have adequately cited and referenced the original
sources. I also declare that I have adhered to all principles of academic honesty and integrity
and have not misrepresented or fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in my
submission. I understand that any violation of the above will be cause for disciplinary action
by the Institute and can also evoke penal action from the sources which have thus not been
properly cited or from whom proper permission has not been taken when needed.

R.A.D.S.Abhijith(17095052)

Banoth Mahesh (17095026)

IIT (BHU) Varanasi

 Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 1-2

1.1 Terahertz waves

1.2 Advantages of Terahertz waves
1.3 Constraints of Terahertz waves
1.4 Motivation behind the project
1.5 Aim of the project

Chapter 2 Review of Literature 3-4

2.1 An Ultra-thin Polarization Independent Metamaterial

Absorber for Triple Band Applications
2.2 Tunable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorbers Using Active Diodes

Chapter 3 CurrentInvestigation 5-8

3.1 CST Studio Suite

3.2 Perfect Absorbers

3.3 Workflow of Absorber simulation in CST software

Chapter 4 Results 9 - 10

Chapter 5 Conclusions 11

References 12
Acknowledgements 12

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 Chapter 1
Introduction

1.1 Terahertz waves

Terahertz waves consists of electromagnetic waves within the band of frequencies of
0.3 to 3 THz. Wavelengths of radiation in the terahertz band correspondingly range from
1 mm to 0.1 mm. Terahertz radiation occupies a middle ground between microwaves and
infrared light waves known as the “terahertz gap”, where technology for its generation and
manipulation is in its infancy. The generation and modulation of electromagnetic waves in
this frequency range ceases to be possible by the conventional electronic devices used to
generate radio waves and microwaves, requiring the development of new devices and
techniques.

1.2 Advantages of Terahertz waves

 Strong interaction with matter – all states
 Significant penetration in some materials
 Naturally occurring spectral signatures
 Very high sensitivity for signal detection
 Aperture advantages over millimeter
 Non ionizing radiation
 Low Tolerance optics
 Unassigned hugely available bandwidth

1.3 Constraints of Terahertz frequency

 High Material Losses – Metals and dielectrics
 Poor atmospheric transmission
 Noise background limited signal detections
 Few natural resonances except in low pressure gases
 Expensive components/instruments.

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1.4 Motivation behind the project
Tunable devices are the backbone of most of the modern technologies, they are used
to modulate electromagnetic waves and signals in most modern devices. While the
problem of such tunability is largely solved in microwaves and for optical
frequencies, this functionality is highly sought after for Terahertz applications.
Design and experiments with functional terahertz metamaterials is the direction that
offers a range of fundamental and applied projects. The hugely unassigned available
bandwidth of Terahertz waves also serves as a great motivation to take up the project
in this field which is believed to be the future of communication technology.

1.5 Aim of the project

Part -1 (Semester-6) :
 Understand the basic concepts of metamaterials, terahertz waves and absorbers
 Get acquainted with the CST software
 Simulate “An Ultra-thin Polarization Independent Metamaterial Absorber for
Triple Band Applications” on CST STUDIO SUITE to get acquainted with the CST
STUDIO SUITE and metamaterial absorbers in general.
 The simulation was made in gigahertz region to compare the results present in the
paper with the results obtained in the simulation.

Part-2 (Semester-7) :
 Perform literature survey on the existing terahertz metamaterial absorbers and
understand their designs
 Find a problem that could be solved but was left unsolved in terahertz region.
 Solve the problem by proposing a design of tunable terahertz metamaterial absorber,
simulate the design in the CST STUDIO SUITE and verify that the simulated results
matches exactly with the expected results.

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 Chapter 2

Review of Literature

2.1 An Ultra-thin Polarization Independent Metamaterial

Absorber for Triple Band Applications
This paper presents an ultra-thin polarization independent metamaterial microwave absorber
comprising of three concentric closed ring resonators (CRR). The unit cell sizes as well as the
other geometrical dimensions like radii and widths of the rings are optimized so that
absorptions take place at three distinct frequencies near to the middle of the FCC radar
frequency spectrum. The front view of the proposed structure is shown in Fig. a where the
directions of electric field, magnetic field and incident electromagnetic wave are also shown.
The structure is completely copper laminated at the back and separated by 1 mm thick
dielectric substrate of FR-4 (εr=4.25 and tanδ=0.02). Both the copper films are 0.035 mm
thick and other dimensions are as shown in Fig. a.

(a) Front view (b) absorptivity of the proposed CRR structure

( a= 10 mm, w=0.2 mm, r1=4.625 mm, r2=3.075 mm, r3=2.15 mm).

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2.2 Tunable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorbers Using Active
Diodes

A tunable terahertz absorber based on voltage-controlled diodes has been designed. For each
unit cell of the absorber, a terahertz active diode is used to connect two identical opposite
meander-lines. Then, voltage can be applied to the diodes without incorporating an extra bias
line to each unit, which greatly reduces the machining difficulty in the terahertz region. To
give a physical insight into the tunable absorber, a transmission-line equivalent circuit is
given and described. Through retrieving the real part and the imagery part of the relative
impedance of the absorbers, we found that the absorption is dependent on the relative
impedance, and the near-unity absorbance can be achieved when the impedance is more close
to that of the free space.

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 Chapter 3
Current Investigation

3.1 CST Studio Suite

CST Studio Suite is a computational electromagnetics tool developed by Dassault Systèmes
Simulia. It contains several different simulation methods, including the finite integration
technique (FIT), finite element method (FEM), transmission line matrix (TLM), multilevel
fast multipole method (MLFMM) and particle-in-cell (PIC), as well as multiphysics solvers
for other domains of physics with links to electromagnetics.

As an electromagnetic design tool, CST Studio Suite is chiefly used in industries such
as telecommunications, defense, automotive, aerospace, electronics and medical
equipment.One application of CST Studio Suite is the design and placement of antennas and
other radio-frequency components.The antenna systems on the BepiColombo Mercury
Planetary Orbiter were developed using CST Studio Suite to investigate their radiation
pattern and possible electromagnetic interference.

3.2 Perfect Absorbers

The simplest model for a perfect absorber would be a homogeneous absorbing
medium in contact with air. The absorbing medium should have both absorption, the
imaginary part of refractive index, and wave impedance of unity to match the impedance of
air. If there is an impedance mismatch, there will always be reflection which is obviously
undesirable for a perfect absorber. The wave impedance depends on the ratio between electric
permittivity €(w) and magnetic permeability µ(w) . Most materials have a permittivity larger
than unity, so we need materials with an equivalent larger than unity permeability too.

In short, for a perfect absorber with unity absorption A we need to simultaneously

minimise the transmission T and reflectivity R; that is, A= 1 – R - T . Transmission is easily
minimisedby utilising a metallic back plate. The reflectivity of an incident electromagnetic
wave normal to a metamaterial absorber is given by

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where is the impedance of the metamaterial absorber

and Z0 is the impedance of free space. For reflectivity to be zero, the impedance match

condition, Z(w) = Z0(w) , must be met. Therefore, the condition must be satisfied. Since there
are no natural magnetic materials in the optical regime, that is to say, for all materials, a

metamaterial with a nonunity permeability is required. Metamaterials allow us to tune the

electric permittivity and magnetic permeability simultaneously and can be designed to allow

us to reach perfect absorption at a certain frequency by impedance matching with free space.

3.3 Workflow of Absorber simulation in CST software

 Place all the parameters in the first step.

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  Place the substrate of length and breadth of “a” and thickness of “t” made of
FR-4(lossy) material. Select the brick shape in the red square and write the dimensions
as shown in the picture

 Place the innermost ring with outer radius “r3+w” ,inner radius “r3” and thickness “tc”
made of pure copper. Select the cylinder shape present in the red square and enter the
dimensions as shown in the picture

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  Place the middle ring with outer radius “r2+w” ,inner radius “r2” and thickness “tc”
made of pure copper. Select the cylinder shape again

 Similarly,Place the outer most ring with outer radius “r1+w”,inner radius “r1” and
thickness “tc” made of pure copper
 Place the pure copper at the back of substrate with length and breadth of “a” and
thickness “tc”. Select the brick present in the red square and place the dimensions as
shown in the figure

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 Chapter 4

Results

CST WAVEFORM

Expected Waveform in the research paper

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 CST FRONT VIEW

RESEARCH PAPER FRONT VIEW

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 Chapter 5
Conclusions

 On observing the images in the results, we can conclude that the simulation was
successful

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 References

 An Ultra-thin Polarization Independent Metamaterial Absorber for Triple Band

Applications
Somak Bhattacharyya, Saptarshi Ghosh and Kumar Vaibhav Srivastava

 Tunable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorbers Using Active Diodes

Limei Qi, Chao Li, Guangyou Fang

 Metasurfaces-Based Absorption and Reflection Control: Perfect Absorbers and

Reflectors
Trevon Badloe, Jungho Mun, and Junsuk Rho

Acknowledgments

 Project report for “Tunable Terahertz Metamaterial Absorber” submitted in partial

fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Technology.
 Thesis Guide was referred to for preparing the thesis. Specifications regarding thesis
format have been closely followed.
 The contents of the thesis have been organized based on the guidelines.
 The thesis has been prepared without resorting to plagiarism.
 All sources used have been cited appropriately.
 The thesis has not been submitted elsewhere for a degree.

IIT (BHU) Varanasi