Soft and broadband infrared metamaterial absorber based on gold nanorod/liquid crystal hybrid with tunable total absorption

Zhaoxian Su, Jianbo Yin*, Xiaopeng Zhao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We design a soft infrared metamaterial absorber based on gold nanorods dispersed in liquid crystal (LC) placed on a gold film and theoretically investigate its total absorption character. Because the nanorods align with the LC molecule, the gold nanorods/LC hybrid exhibits different permittivity as a function of tilt angle of LC. At a certain tilt angle, the absorber shows an omnidirectional total absorption effect. By changing the tilt angle of LC by an external electric field, the total absorption character can be adjusted. The total absorption character also depends on the concentration, geometric dimension of nanorods, and defect of nanorod arrangement in LC. When the LC contains different size of gold nanorods, a broadband absorption can be easily realized. The characteristics including flexibility, omnidirectional, broadband and tunablility make the infrared metamaterial absorber possess potential use in smart metamaterial devices.

Original languageEnglish
Article number16698
JournalScientific Reports
Volume5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 18 Nov 2015
Externally publishedYes

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