Hybrid Resonators and Highly Tunable Terahertz Metamaterials Enabled by Vanadium Dioxide (VO₂)

Hybrid metamaterials that exhibit reconfigurable responses under external stimulus, such as electric fields and light radiation, have only recently been demonstrated by combining active media with patterned metallic structures. Nevertheless, hybrid terahertz (THz) metamaterials whose spectral performance can be dynamically tuned over a large scale remain rare. Compared with most active media (for instance, silicon) that provide limited activity, vanadium dioxide (VO₂), which exhibits an insulator-to-metal transition, has been recently explored to facilitate dynamically tunable metamaterials. More importantly, the phase transition yields a three orders of magnitude increase in THz electrical conductivity, which suggests the potential for creating VO₂ based hybrid resonators that operate at THz frequencies. Here, we show that an integration of VO₂ structures and conventional metallic resonating components can enable a class of highly tunable THz metamaterials. Considering the widely studied phase-transition dynamics in VO₂, the proposed hybrid metamaterials are capable of offering ultrafast modulation of THz radiation.