An actively tunable broadband terahertz absorber is numerically demonstrated, which consists of four identical vanadium dioxide (VO₂) square loops and a metal ground plane separated by a dielectric spacer. Simulation results show that an excellent absorption bandwidth of 90% terahertz absorptance reaches as wide as 2.45 THz from 1.85 to 4.3 THz under normal incidence. By changing the conductivity of VO₂, an approximately perfect amplitude modulation is realized with the absorptance dynamically tuned from 4% to 100%. This absorption performance is greatly improved compared with previously reported VO₂-based absorbers. The physical mechanisms of a single absorption band and the perfect absorption are elucidated by the wave-interference theory and the impedance matching theory, respectively. Field distributions are further discussed to explore the physical origin of this absorber. In addition, it also has the advantages of polarization insensitivity and wide-angle absorption. The proposed absorber may have many promising applications in the terahertz range such as modulator, sensor, cloaking and optic-electro switches.

If a metalens integrates the circular polarization (CP) conversion function, the focusing lens together with circular-polarizing lens (CPL) in traditional cameras may be replaced by a metalens. However, in terahertz (THz) band, the reported metalenses still do not obtain the perfect and strict single-handed CP, because they were constructed via Pancharatnam-Berry phase so that CP conversion contained both left-handed CP (LCP) and right-handed CP (RCP) components. In this paper, a silicon based THz metalens is constructed using dynamic phase to obtain single-handed CP conversion. Also, we can rotate the whole metalens at a certain angle to control the conversion of multi-polarization states, which can simply manipulate the focusing for incident linear polarization (LP) THz wave in three polarization conversion states, including LP without conversion, LCP and RCP. Moreover, the polarization conversion behavior is reversible, that is, the THz metalens can convert not only the LP into arbitrary single-handed CP, but also the LCP and RCP into two perpendicular LP, respectively. The metalens is expected to be used in advanced THz camera, as a great candidate for traditional CPL and focusing lens group, and also shows potential application in polarization imaging with discriminating LCP and RCP.

In this paper, we present an active controllable terahertz absorber with dual broadband characteristics, comprised by two diagonal identical patterns of vanadium dioxide in the top layer of the classical three-layer structure of metamaterial perfect absorbers. Simulation results show that two bandwidths of 80% absorption are 0.88 THz and 0.77 THz from 0.56 to 1.44 THz and 2.88 to 3.65 THz, respectively. By using thermal control to change the conductivity of the vanadium dioxide, absorptance can be continuously adjusted from 20% to 90%. The impedance matching theory is introduced to analyze and elucidate the physical mechanism of the perfect absorption. Field analyses are further investigated to get more insight into the physical origin of the dual broadband absorption. In addition, incident polarization insensitivity and wide-angle absorption are also demonstrated. The proposed absorber promises diverse applications in terahertz regime, such as imaging, modulating, sensing and cloaking.