Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104

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Results in Physics
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Tunable dual-functional metasurface for wideband cross-polarization

conversion and wideband absorption
Chandu DS a ,∗, K.B.S. Sri Nagini a , Ping Jack Soh b , S.S. Karthikeyan c
a
School of Electronics Engineering, VIT-AP University, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India
b
Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Oulu, Finland
c
Electronics and Communication Engineering, NIT Tiruchirappalli, India

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: This work presents a tunable and wideband dual-functional metasurface (DFM) operating in the terahertz
Cross-polarization converter regime with highest overlap bandwidth (OBW). The structure consists of a double-split ring resonator and
Dual-functional a meandered square ring resonator based on VO2 to achieve reflective cross-polarization conversion and
Double-split ring
absorption functionalities, respectively. When the phase changing material VO2 is in its metallic state, the
Meandered square ring
metasurface acts as a perfect absorber with a peak absorption of ≥ 90% over the operating band of 2.3–4.01
Silicon
Tunable
THz. When VO2 is in its insulating state, the metasurface acts as a reflective cross-polarization converter
Vanadium dioxide over a wideband from 1–4.1 THz with high polarization conversion ratio of ≥ 90%. The proposed DFM has a
Wideband stable response up to 45◦ of incidence in the polarization converter state and 60◦ of angular stability under the
absorber state. Further, tunability is achieved by integrating photoconductive silicon and controlling the optical
pump intensity in the double-split ring and meandered . square ring resonators. The proposed metasurface finds
its applications in security, detection and THz communication systems.

Introduction challenging to design metasurfaces with absorption and polarization

Metasurfaces have evolved significantly over the last decade espe-
cially in the field of Terahertz (THz) photonic devices for manipulating
and controlling the characteristics of electromagnetic waves. They have
been used prominently in THz communications [1], biomedical de-
vices [2], and optical systems including metalens [3], optical filters [4],
polarization converters [5–7], THz absorbers [8] and beam splitters [9].
Numerous tunable metasurfaces have been developed [10–16] that can
dynamically modify their electromagnetic properties in response to
external excitations. Recently, dual-functional metasurfaces (DFMs) are
gaining wide research attention due to the advantages of switchabil-
ity, compactness, integration cost effectiveness. Dual-functional meta-
surfaces have been designed on transmissive and reflective modes.
In transmissive dual functionality of beam shaping and polarization
conversion is achieved by using all dielectric metasurface [17]. Dual-
functional metasurfaces could be realized the THz region to achieve
switchability between various functionalities such as: (i) linear to cir-
cular (LTC) and circular to linear (CTL) polarization conversion [18],
(ii) polarization and absorption or reflection [19,20], (iii) LTC and
linear-cross polarization (LTX) conversion [21–23], (iv) THz absorp-
tion and LTC polarization conversion [24–28] and (v) THz absorption
and LTX conversion [29–42]. Among these dual-functionalities, it is
conversion characteristics due to the requirement of overlapping band-
width (OBW). Also, compared to single layered structure, the overlap
bandwidth of the double layer structure is high [41] and by mul-
tilayered devices to provide multifunctionalities with high capacity,
device integration, high speed of operation and minaturization. Hence-
forth, unless otherwise mentioned, DFM is typically a dual-functional
metasurface which exhibits absorption and linear-to-cross polarization
conversion functions.
In literature, resonator-based DFMs are mostly incorporated with a
phase changing material. For example, DFMs can be designed by filling
the gaps of orthogonal split ring resonators with photo-conductive
silicon (Si) [29]. However, such structure suffers narrow bandwidth
at the >90% absorption range and there is no OBW between the
two functions. Wideband DFMs can be designed by tuning the Fermi
energy levels of continuous and patterned graphene layers but these
structures are not stable to oblique angles of incidence [30]. Vanadium
dioxide (VO2 ) is another commonly used material in DFMs due to
its inherent advantage of ultrafast response to thermal, electrical and
optical excitation with a timescale of 100 fs. [43].
For example, tailored DFMs with square shaped VO2 patches and
SiO2 spacers [31] and arc-shaped VO2 resonators [32] achieved OBWs

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: chandu.ds@vitap.ac.in (C. DS).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2023.107104
Received 19 August 2023; Received in revised form 1 October 2023; Accepted 18 October 2023
Available online 24 October 2023
2211-3797/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
C. DS et al.
Fig. 1. (a) Geometric-view (b) cross-sectional view of the unit cell of the tunable dual functional metasurface.
Fig. 2. Top and bottom planes of (a) layer 1 which consists of meandered square ring and double split ring resonators and the gap is filled with Silicon, (b) layer 2 consists of
full coated vanadium dioxide and gold on the top and bottom planes, respectively and (c) proposed metasurface.
of ≥0.5 THz, with a large unit-cell size of 150 μm. On the other
hand, array of slotted metal rings and T-shaped VO2 resonators on a
three layered dielectric resulted in a highly miniaturized unit-cell [33].
However, the OBW is only limited to 0.26 THz and there is a trade-off
between the unit-cell size and bandwidth. Recently, a six-layer minia-
turized DFM structure with gold gap-rings and VO2 surfaces achieved
a OBW of 1.22 THz but the structure has poor angular stability [35].
A bifunctional metasurface based on germanium antimony-tellurium
(GST) has proposed based on the combination of disk and metallic
strip to achieve polarization conversion and absorption characteris-
tics [36]. From these existing works, it is understood that realization
of miniaturized THz based metasurfaces with dual-functionality and
high performance characteristics over a wide frequency range with
maximum intersection of operating bands is still a challenge. Moreover,
to the best knowledge of the authors, none of the existing works in the
open literature have dual-functionality and tunability features.
In this paper, a tunable dual-functional metasurface based on VO2
and photoconductive Si in the terahertz region is proposed. The meta-
surface can be switched from a reflective cross-polarization converter
state to a perfect absorber state by controlling the temperature of VO2 .
The tunability of individual function can be obtained by varying the
optical pump beam power incident on the photoconductive Si. The pro-
posed metasurface provides the wideband performance characteristics
in the operating bands with a maximum overlap bandwidth of 1.71
THz. In practical applications of 6G network/systems [44], there is an
urgent need to develop dual functional devices with dynamic switching
of the two functions, as well as dynamic tuning of performance at the
same time, which offers a wide range of possible applications in sensors,
detectors, solar cells, etc.
Dual functional metasurface design
The geometry and side-view of the proposed DFM is shown in
Fig. 1(a) and (b), respectively. The top plane of layer 1 is designed
2
Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104
with square meandered VO2 ring embedded with photoconductive Si
material. This structure is designed to be symmetric with the aim of
achieving near perfect absorption characteristics. The bottom plane
of a layer 1 is designed with circular split-ring made of gold with a
conductivity of 4.56 × 107 S/m, thickness of 0.2 μm and it is integrated
with photoconductive Si as shown in Fig. 2(a). Due to its anisotropic
property, it provides cross polarization conversion characteristics. Sim-
ilarly, the top plane of layer 2 is completely filled with VO2 and the
bottom plane is coated with gold as shown in Fig. 2(b). The top and
bottom planes of both these layers are separated by polyimide dielectric
material with a relative permittivity of 3.5 and a dielectric loss tangent
of 0.008. The entire structure is a combination of layer 1 and layer
2 as illustrated in Fig. 2(c). A full wave electromagnetic simulator is
used for simulation, where the periodic boundary conditions are set
along the x and y direction and the Floquet port is applied along the
z-direction. The optimized geometric parameters are: 𝑝 = 30 μm, ‴1
= 26 μm, ‴2 = 4.5 μm, 𝑤1 = 10 μm, 𝑟1 = 14.5 μm, 𝑟2 = 12 μm, 𝑑1 =
8 μm, ℎ1 = ℎ3 = ℎ4 = ℎ6 = 0.2 μm, and ℎ2 = ℎ5 = 6 μm. The Drude
model [45] is used to describe the relative permittivity of VO2 given
by Eq. (1)
𝜔2𝑝 (𝜎)
𝜀(𝜔) = 𝜀′ + 𝜀′′ = 𝜀∞ − (1)
𝜔2 + 𝑖𝛾𝜔
The dielectric permittivity at infinite frequency (𝜀∞ ) is 12, the
collision frequency (𝛾) is 5.75 × 1013 rad/s. The plasma frequency
which is dependent on conductivity [45] can be described by Eq. (2)
𝜎𝜔2𝑝 (𝜎◦ )
𝜔2𝑝 (𝜎) = (2)
𝜎◦
where, 𝜎◦ = 3 × 103 Ω/cm and 𝜔𝑝 (𝜎◦ ) = 1.4 × 1015 rad/s. From Eq. (1)
and (2), it can be said that varying the phases of VO2 leads to different
conductivities. When VO2 is in insulating state, its conductivity is 10
S/m and a dielectric permittivity of 9. Whereas, in the conducting
state VO2 has a conductivity of 2 × 105 S/m. Practically, temperature
C. DS et al.
Fig. 3. Schematic of the vacuumed cryostat.
changes can dynamically alter the conductivity of VO2 within various
layers. The Janis cryostat shown in Fig. 3 allows to perform the thermal
tuning characterization of the sample [46]. Inside the Janis cryostat,
there is a resistive heater. This heater is used to control the overall
temperature of the cryostat. By adjusting the power supplied to the
heater, the user can raise or lower the temperature of the cryostat to the
desired level. As observed in Fig. 3, the proposed DFM (called as sam-
ple) is fixed onto the copper cold finger of the cryostat. The cold finger
is designed such that it can transfer and maintain temperatures, thereby
exposing the sample to the controlled environment. To monitor the
temperature of the sample during experiments, a thermistor is installed
on the copper cold finger, a few wavelengths away from the sample.
It provides real-time feedback on the temperature of the cold finger
and the sample. The overall operation of the Janis cryostat involves
controlling the resistive heater to achieve and maintain the desired
temperature within the cryostat chamber. The thermistor continuously
measures the temperature of the cold finger, ensuring that it remains
stable and within the specified temperature range.
On the other hand, photoconductivity Si with relative permittivity
of 11.7 is used for tunability. The conductivity of Si will be varied
with the variation in external pump beam power. Excess photo-carriers
are generated when the optical pump beam is incident on the Silicon
surface as long as the pump beam power is greater than its band gap
energy. The change in conductivity of Si with beam power [47] can be
described by using Eq. (3)
𝜎𝑆𝑖 = 4.863 × 10−4 × 𝐼 2 + 0.1856 × 𝐼 + 1.569 (3)
where, 𝐼 is the energy flux of the optical beam. Without the illumina-
tion of the optical pump beam, the conductivity of Si is 1 S/m and
with optical pump beam illumination, the conductivity increases up
to 1 × 105 S/m. When the pump light intensity is 0, the conductivity
of photoconductive silicon is 1 S/m, and it increases significantly to
1 × 105 S/m when the intensity of the pump light is 249 μJ/cm2 .
By using the optical excitation, the intensity required for VO2 is 8
mJ/cm2 [48], which is considerably greater than the intensity required
for photoconductive silicon. Therefore, the excitation of photocon-
ductive silicon with the pump light has almost no effect on VO2 .
Wideband cross-polarization converter
Working principle
When the temperature T < 340 K, VO2 will remain in the insulating
state and the conducting elements in the DFM consist of only the
double-split ring gold resonator with the splits filled with photocon-
ductive Si in layer 1 and a fully coated bottom gold layer in layer 2.
Due to the existence of the splits, the symmetry of the circular ring
3
Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104
Fig. 4. Decomposition of y-polarized incident 𝐸𝑖𝑦 and x-polarized reflected 𝐸𝑟𝑥 electric
field components along u-and v-directions which provides incident (𝐸𝑖𝑢 , 𝐸𝑖𝑣 ) and
reflected (𝐸𝑟𝑢 , 𝐸𝑟𝑣 ) electric field components in the uv-coordinate system.
resonator disappears and it exhibits anisotropic properties and acts as
a reflective cross-polarization converter.
To understand the polarization conversion, consider a y-polarized
incident electromagnetic wave along the z-direction. The incident EM
wave is decomposed into two orthogonal u and v components along the
u and v-axis which makes an angle of +45◦ and −45◦ , respectively with
respect to y-axis as shown in Fig. 4. At z = 0, the incident y-polarized
EM wave can be represented by Eq. (4)
𝐸𝑖 = 𝑦𝐸
̂ 𝑖 = (𝑢𝐸
̂ 𝑖𝑢 + 𝑣𝐸
̂ 𝑖𝑣 ) (4)
The reflected x-polarized electric field of the EM wave can be described
by Eq. (5)
𝐸𝑟 = (𝑢𝐸
̂ 𝑟𝑢 + 𝑣𝐸
̂ 𝑟𝑣 ) (5)
The reflected wave can be represented in terms of the
co-polarization components (𝑅𝑢𝑢 , 𝑅𝑣𝑣 ) and cross-polarization compo-
nents (𝑅𝑢𝑣 , 𝑅𝑣𝑢 ) along u and v-axes given by Eq. (6)
̂ 𝑢𝑢 𝐸𝑖𝑢 𝑒𝑗𝜙𝑢𝑢 + 𝑅𝑢𝑣 𝐸𝑖𝑣 𝑒𝑗𝜙𝑢𝑣 ) + 𝑣(𝑅
𝐸𝑟 = 𝑢(𝑅 ̂ 𝑣𝑣 𝐸𝑖𝑣 𝑒𝑗𝜙𝑣𝑣 + 𝑅𝑣𝑢 𝐸𝑖𝑢 𝑒𝑗𝜙𝑣𝑢 ) (6)
where, 𝜙𝑢𝑢 , 𝜙𝑣𝑣 , 𝜙𝑢𝑣 and 𝜙𝑣𝑢 are phase differences between the corre-
sponding components.
The two conditions that must be satisfied in order to achieve cross-
polarization conversion are: (i) The magnitudes of co-polarization and
cross-polarization reflection coefficients of the u- and v-components
must be |𝑅𝑢𝑢 | = |𝑅𝑣𝑣 | ≈ 1 and |𝑅𝑢𝑣 | = |𝑅𝑣𝑢 | ≈ 0. For the proposed
structure, the magnitude of u and v components are close to 1 and 0,
respectively as shown in Fig. 5(a). (ii) The phase difference between
u and v-components (𝜙𝑣𝑣 − 𝜙𝑢𝑢 ) = 180◦ , to satisfy the condition for
orthogonality between the u and v-components. It can be observed from
Fig. 5(b), that a phase difference of 180◦ ± 37◦ is maintained over the
operating bandwidth from 1–4.1 THz. At resonant frequencies 𝑓1 = 1.6
THz, 𝑓2 = 2.7 THz and 𝑓3 = 3.7 THz, the phase difference is 180◦ , which
satisfies the orthogonality condition. Hence, the proposed metasurface
provides the cross-polarization conversion.
Result analysis and tunability
The co-polarized reflection coefficients are shown in Fig. 6(a). The
closely spaced resonant frequencies provides a wideband polarization
conversion from 1–4.1 THz. The co-polarized reflection coefficient 𝑅𝑦𝑦
is obtained using y-polarized reflected (𝐸𝑟𝑦 ) and incident (𝐸𝑖𝑦 ) wave
can be obtained by using Eq. (7)
|𝐸𝑟𝑦 |
𝑅𝑦𝑦 = (7)
|𝐸𝑖𝑦 |
C. DS et al.
Fig. 5. (a) Reflection coefficients of co-polarized and cross-polarized uv components so that the magnitudes of the corresponding components are close to 1 and 0, respectively,
(b) absolute phase difference between the reflected u and v components at normal incidence is maintained within 180◦ ± 37◦ .
Fig. 6. (a) Reflection coefficients of co-polarized (𝑅𝑦𝑦 ) and cross-polarized (𝑅𝑥𝑦 ) components of the incident y-polarized electromagnetic wave, (b) The PCR for normal incidence
of the y-polarized EM wave, and (c) angular stability.
Fig. 7. Absorbance in the polarization conversion mode.
and the cross-polarized reflection coefficients (𝑅𝑥𝑦 & 𝑅𝑦𝑥 ) are given by
Eq. (8)
|𝐸𝑟𝑥 |
𝑅𝑥𝑦 =
|𝐸𝑖𝑦 |
where, 𝐸𝑟𝑥 and 𝐸𝑖𝑦 are the x-polarized reflected and y-polarized in-
cident waves, respectively. The efficiency of the cross polarization
converter can be analyzed by using polarization conversion ratio (PCR)
Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104
described by using Eq. (9)
|𝑅𝑥𝑦 |2
𝑃 𝐶𝑅 = (9)
|𝑅𝑥𝑦 |2 + |𝑅𝑦𝑦 |2
The PCR at resonant frequencies 1.6 THz, 2.6 THz and 3.7 THz
are 99.99%, 99.79% and 97.66% respectively, as shown in Fig. 6(b).
Within the operating band the PCR is >90%. The polarization converter
performance characteristics can be analyzed for various incident angles
as illustrated in Fig. 6(a). The lower and higher resonating modes are
not sensitive for incident angles up to 45◦ . But it is noted that there is
a significant change in PCR for angles of incidence above 60◦ . Thus,
the proposed metasurface achieved angular stability up to 45◦ , where
the polarization converter maintains a PCR of >80%. Fig. 7 shows
the absorbance in the polarization conversion mode. The value of the
absorbance is less than 25% within the operating band of 1 – 4.1 THz
of the reflective cross-polarization converter. This shows the efficiency
of dual-mode conversion for the proposed metasurface.
The tunability of the proposed polarization converter is achieved
by utilizing photoconductive Si. When the conductivity of Si is 1 S/m,
it acts as an insulator and breaks the symmetry of the ring resonator.
The magnitude of co-polarized reflection coefficients decreases and the
cross-polarized reflection coefficients increase, so that the polarization
(8)
conversion ratio is high. When the conductivity of Si is increased to 105
S/m, Si acts as a metallic conductor and structure becomes symmetrical
ring resonator. Thus the magnitude of co- and cross-polarized reflection
coefficients opposite, the corresponding PCR becomes very low. It can
be observed from Fig. 8, the PCR is >80% for insulating state and it is
4
C. DS et al.
Fig. 8. Tunability of polarization converter for different conductivities of Si.
Fig. 9. Absorption characteristics of Absorber 1, Absorber 2, and Absorber 3. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)
<60% for metallic state of Si. Therefore, integrating Si to the structure
provides the tunability of the metasurface within the operating band.
Tunable wideband absorber
Design approach for maximum OBW
When the temperature 𝑇 > 340 K, VO2 is in metallic state and
the metasurface acts as an absorber. Since the operating band of
polarization converter is from 1–4.1 THz, in order to achieve maximum
overlap between the frequency bands, it is desired that the operating
range of the absorber also falls in the same frequency band. Initially,
a square ring resonator (Absorber 1) with inner and outer dimensions
of 27 μm and 29 μm, respectively, is designed. The absorption range is
2.72–4.46 THz and the overlap of the frequency bands is very low as
shown in Fig. 9. Due to this reason, the square resonator is meandered
(Absorber 2) with one turn of length 4.5 μm and width 10 μm, so that
it provides the red shift by an amount of 0.59 THz, with an operating
range from 2.3–4.01 THz. Further, adding one more turn to the square
resonator (Absorber 3) resulted in narrow operating bandwidth from
2.39–3.72 THz as shown in Fig. 9. Therefore, Absorber 2 is chosen as a
optimized structure which provides simultaneous wideband operation
and maximum overlap of operating bands for the DFM as shown in
Fig. 10(a).
5
Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104
Working principle
The absorber functionality is achieved mainly due to the top VO2
layer and the upper polyimide layer and the middle VO2 layer. To
better understand the mechanism of the absorber, the concept of
impedance matching is used. The relative impedance of the metasurface
is described as the ratio of effective impedance of the absorber to that of
the free space impedance to achieve perfect absorption characteristics
of the metasurface. The relative impedance of the absorber can be
calculated by using Eq. (10)
√
(1 + 𝑆11 )2 − (𝑆21 )2
𝑍= (10)
(1 − 𝑆11 )2 − (𝑆21 )2
The real and imaginary values of relative impedance of the absorber
are approximately to 1 and 0, respectively, with in the operating band
2.3–4.01 THz as shown in Fig. 10(b).
Absorptivity and tunability
The absorptivity of the metasurface can be calculated as A = 1
− R(𝜔) − T (𝜔) = 1 − |𝑆21 |2 − |𝑆11 |2 , where, R(𝜔) and T (𝜔) are the
reflective and transmissive coefficients of the metasurface, respectively.
There is no transmission of energy through the metasurface, |𝑆21 |2 = 0.
Thus, the absorptivity of the metasurface is modified as A = 1 − R(𝜔).
It can be observed from Fig. 11(a), at resonant frequency of 3.14 THz,
the absorptivity is 99.68% and is 90% with in the entire operating
frequency range (2.3–4.01 THz). The performance of the absorber for
different angles of incidence are shown in Fig. 11(b). It can be seen
that the proposed metasurface has absorption angular stability of up to
60◦ . The tunability of the proposed absorber can be obtained by adding
photoconductive Si to the single meander of the square resonator. By
varying the optical pump beam power, the absorber achieved the tun-
able characteristics for different conductivities as shown in Fig. 12. As
the conductivity of the photoconductive Si decreases, the symmetry of
the meandered ring is broken and the structure exhibits poor absorption
characteristics.
Analysis of the DFM and sample fabrication process
The physical mechanism of the proposed metasurface can be ana-
lyzed by using electric field and current distributions of the conducting
layers. It can be observed from Fig. 13, the maximum electric field
distribution is concentrated along the double-split ring resonator for
VO2 in insulating state. When VO2 is in conducting state, the maximum
electric field distribution is on the square meander structure. The direc-
tion of current on the top and bottom conducting layers are flowing in
opposite directions at 1.6 THz and 3.7 THz, which is referred as the
magnetic resonance. At a resonant frequency of 2.7 THz, the currents
are parallel, which leads to electric resonance. Thus, the metasurface
acts as reflective cross polarization converter due to the plasmonic
resonance.
Parametric analysis
The performance characteristics of metasurface depends on the
dimensions of the structure. The impact of geometrical parameters on
PCR is analyzed by using radius of inner conductor (𝑟2 ) and split gap
of ring-resonator (𝑑1 ). From Fig. 14(a), it can be observed that as the
radius of the inner conductor is increased from 10 μm to 14 μm, there
is a red shift in the highest resonant frequency from 4.34 to 3.67 THz,
so that the bandwidth will be decreased. For 𝑟2 > 12 μm, there is an
effect on PCR which is dropped to 70%. On the other hand, for 𝑟2 <
12 μm the bandwidth is decreased to 2.5 THz. When split-gap of the
ring resonator is increased from 4 μm to 12 μm, there is change in the
lowest resonant frequency. But the highest resonant frequency is blue
shifted from 3.5 to 4.4 THz, and there is no significant change in PCR
C. DS et al. Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104

Fig. 10. (a) Reflection coefficient of polarization converter and absorber, (b) Relative impedance of absorber.

Fig. 11. (a) Absorptivity and reflectivity of absorber, (b) Angular stability of absorber for various angle of incidences which provides the stability up to 60◦ .

which is >80% as shown in Fig. 14(b). Thus, the optimized values of

Fig. 12. Tunability of absorber for different conductivities of Si.
𝑟2 and 𝑑1 are chosen as 12 μm and 8 μm, respectively, to achieve best
bandwidth and PCR performance characteristics simultaneously.
The effect of performance characteristics of absorber can be ana-
lyzed by varying the geometrical parameters of the structure. When
the length of the inner square ring resonator (𝑙1 ) is varied from 24
to 28 μm, there is no change in the highest resonant frequency, but
there is a change in reflection from −15 dB to −35 dB which effects
the absorptivity of the metasurface as shown in Fig. 15(a). When the
length of the square meander is 𝑙2 < 4.5 μm, there is significant blue
shift in the highest frequency which effects the maximum overlapping
frequency band as shown in Fig. 15(b). For 𝑙2 > 4.5 μm, there is a small
effect in bandwidth. Thus the optimized values of 𝑙1 and 𝑙2 are chosen as
27 μm and 4.5 μm, respectively, in order to achieve perfect absorptivity
and maximum overlap bandwidth.
Table 1 compares the performance of the proposed tunable and DFM
with the other existing works. The DFM in this work provides improved
performance in terms of maximum overlapping bandwidth between the
functionalities with a compact unit cell. Despite the small unit cell size,
the metasurface in [33] suffers from low OBW. Several other existing
DFMs exhibit either poor OBW or limited by the angular stability issues.
The proposed DFM operates with integrated wideband polarization
conversion and absorption characteristics with the highest OBW and
maximum angular stability in both the cases. More importantly, the

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C. DS et al. Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104

Fig. 13. Electric field of polarization converter, absorber and current distributions of polarization converter at three resonance frequencies 1.6 THz, 2.7 THz and 3.7 THz on the
double split ring resonator and ground.

Fig. 14. Parametric analysis of reflective cross-polarization converter. Effect of r2 and (b) Effect of d2 . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 15. Parametric analysis of absorber. (a) variation of l1 and (b) variation of l2 . (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to
the web version of this article.)

7
C. DS et al. Results in Physics 54 (2023) 107104

Fig. 16. Fabrication process of the dual functional polarization converter and absorber.

Table 1
Performance comparison of dual-functional metasurface with existing works of unitcell size ≤ 100 μm.
Ref UC FR (THz) OBW AS (◦ ) Material/
(μm) Abs PC (%) Abs PC IT(Y/N)
[29] 30 3.12–3.36 2.01–2.56 0 60 45 Si/N
[42] 90 1.07–1.19 1.43–1.51 0 NG NG VO2 /N
[38] 30 1.5–2.3 2.12–3.58 8.6 60 45 VO2 /N
[33] 10 0.67–0.95 0.69–1.38 36.6 NG NG VO2 /N
[40] 35 0.88–2.1 0.97–1.47 40.9 60 40 G/N
[37] 60 1.03–2.62 1.81–2.39 36.47 50 15 VO2 /N
[30] 100 1.74–3.52 1.54–2.55 40.91 50 25 G/N
[35] 60 3.33–5.62 2.54–4.55 39.61 40 30 VO2 /N
TW* 30 2.3–4.01 1–4.1 55.16 60 45 VO2 /Y

TW indicates this work, UC-Unitcell, FR-Frequency range, OBW-Overlap bandwidth, AS-Angular stability, IT-Independent tunability, Si-Silicon,
VO2 -Vanadium dioxide, GST-Germanium antimony-tellurium, G-Graphene, NG-Not given, Y-Yes, N-No

existing DFMs are not tunable, whereas the dynamic feature of ad-
justing the operating frequency and applications (tunability) provides
robustness to the proposed DFM in this work.
Fabrication process
Sputtering and lithography are used for the fabrication process of
the proposed metasurface as shown in Fig. 16. First, using sputtering
technique, gold is deposited onto quartz, and then 0.2 μm gold is coated
onto the quartz as shown in 16(a), (b), (c). The polyimide solution is
uniformly spin-coated on the gold as shown in 16(d), and after being
heated to a high temperature, a solid polyimide layer that is 6 μm thick
is created as shown in 16(e). The spin-coating technique is also used to
create the VO2 film on the polyimide layer, and the wet film is dried
under nitrogen protection to create the 0.2 μm thick film as shown in
16(f). The photo-resist is uniformly spin-coated on the gold film, while
the evaporation deposition of a 0.2 μm thick gold film on the VO2 film is
carried out as shown in 16(g). Silicon arcs for tunability are achieved
using electron beam lithography as shown in 16(h). The spin-coating
technique process is repeated for the second substrate to produce a
polyimide layer with a thickness of 6 μm. On the second polyimide
layer, the VO2 film is again prepared, and the photoresist is uniformly
spun on the VO2 film. By using lithography technology, the VO2 pattern
with silicon structure is finally etched as shown in 16(i).
Conclusion
A dual-functional and tunable metasurface based on phase changing
materials VO2 and Si is proposed. By adjusting the optical pump beam

8
C. DS et al.
power and temperature, the metasurface achieved both the tunabil-
ity and dual-functionality characteristics, respectively. The absorption
characteristics are achieved by using square meandered resonator,
which provides a peak absorption of >90%, when VO2 serves as con-
ductor. The reflective cross-polarization conversion is obtained by using
the double-split ring resonator along the anisotropic axis when the VO2
is in the insulator state. The combination of the closely spaced resonant
frequencies provides the wideband characteristics of the polarization
converter. The DFM achieved an overlap bandwidth of 1.71 THz with
an extremely small unit cell size of 30 μm and the structure is angularly
stable up to at least 45◦ in both the functionalities.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chandu DS: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Soft-
ware, Supervision, Writing – original draft. K.B.S. Sri Nagini: Concep-
tualization, Data curation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – original
draft. Ping Jack Soh: Supervision, Validation, Writing – review &
editing. S.S. Karthikeyan: Supervision, Validation, Writing – review
& editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
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