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Updated: Oct 26, 2025

Simulation, Fabrication and Characterization of THz Metamaterial Absorbers
Published on: December 27, 2012
All-dielectric perfect absorber based on quadrupole modes
Abstract:
In principle, the absorbance of a free-standing ultra-thin film is limited to 50%. To overcome this limitation, an all-dielectric perfect absorber is proposed herein based on the concept of degenerate critical coupling (DCC) of quadrupole modes. We study the absorbance of a dielectric elliptic cylinder and find that perfect absorption can be achieved by spectrally overlapping peaks of electric and magnetic quadrupole modes. This suggests that the DCC method can be extended to the quadrupole modes beyond dipole modes. Such an all-dielectric perfect absorber can be used in photodetectors, optical filters, and optical modulators mediated by the photothermal effect.
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