A Thermal-Switchable Metamaterial Absorber Based on the Phase-Change Material of Vanadium Dioxide

Zhongbao Wang; Yanli Ma; Ming Li; Liangfei Wu; Tiantian Guo; Yuejun Zheng; Qiang Chen; Yunqi Fu

doi:10.3390/nano12173000

A Thermal-Switchable Metamaterial Absorber Based on the Phase-Change Material of Vanadium Dioxide

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Aug 30;12(17):3000. doi: 10.3390/nano12173000.

Authors

Zhongbao Wang¹, Yanli Ma¹, Ming Li², Liangfei Wu², Tiantian Guo¹, Yuejun Zheng¹, Qiang Chen^{1

3}, Yunqi Fu¹

Affiliations

¹ The College of Electronic Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China.
² Key Laboratory of Material Physics, Anhui Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China.
³ Science and Technology on Advanced Ceramic Fibers and Composites Key Laboratory, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China.

Abstract

This article presents a thermal-switchable metamaterial absorber (TSMA) based on the phase-change material of vanadium dioxide (VO₂). VO₂ thin film was deposited on sapphire substrate by magnetron sputtering followed by vacuum annealing treatment. Then, the prepared VO₂ film was sliced into tiny chips for thermal-switchable elements. The surface structure of TSMA was realized by loading four VO₂ chips into a square metallic loop. The absorption frequency of TSMA was located at 7.3 GHz at room temperature and switched to 6.8 GHz when the temperature was heated above the critical phase transition temperature of VO₂. A VO₂-based TSMA prototype was fabricated and measured to verify this design. The design is expected to be used in metasurface antennas, sensors, detectors, etc.

Keywords: metamaterial absorber; thermal-switchable; vanadium dioxide.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61901492, 61901493), Provincial Natural Science Foundation of Hunan (2022JJ30665), and the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (2020RC2046).