Microwave tunneling in heterostructures with electromagnetically induced transparency-like metamaterials based on solid state plasma

Abstract

Interference induced electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT)-like effect has demonstrated the ability to realize narrow transmission resonances within the single-resonator stop band. Due to the limited plasma density in actual devices, only few reports discuss the plasma metamaterials and truncated photonic crystals which support electromagnetically induced transparency. However, solid state plasma realized by some semiconductors have the advantages of higher order plasma density and the characteristics of the reconfiguration and tunability. Here, we conduct a numerical study of the perfect microwave tunneling in heterostructures composed of solid state plasma metamaterials and truncated photonic crystal. There is particular emphasis on the tunability of tunneling frequency by changing plasma frequency in solid state plasma, as well as the electric energy density distributions in heterostructures. It was found that, compared to conventional metal photonic crystal, the reflectance of tunneling mode can be reduced from −25.8 dB to −41.7 dB with an optimized Q-factor. Further study on electric energy density distribution confirms that EM wave in-plane localization originated from the EIT-like solid state plasma, which gives rise to the three-dimensional enhancement of sub-wavelength EM wave localization, is stronger than EM wave confinement along the propagation direction. Owing to the tunability of plasma, the tunneling frequency channel can be adjusted or reconfigured in a certain range without adjusting the geometry of the heterostructure. It suggests the fabrication for highly sensitive dielectric sensing, optical switches, and so on.