Perfect electromagnetic absorption using graphene and epsilon-near-zero metamaterials

Abstract

The ability of graphene/polymer heterostructures to absorb GHz electromagnetic radiation was recently evidenced both theoretically and experimentally [Batrakov et al., Sci. Rep. 4, 7191 (2014) and Lobet et al., Nanotechnology 26, 285702 (2015)]. Maximum absorption was shown to depend solely on refractive indices of incident and emergence media once impedance matching conditions are fulfilled. In this paper, analytical models and numerical simulations are performed for both semi-infinite and finite slab substrate. We evidenced that only three graphene layers separated by a dielectric spacer and an epsilon-near-zero metamaterial as emergence medium allow a perfect absorption for normal incidence. The use of lossless epsilon-near-zero metamaterial prevents radiations to go through the device, because of infinite impedance, and forces them to be totally absorbed in the dissipative medium (graphene). The device is proved to be robust regarding angular incidence up to 45 deg for a semi-infinite epsilon-near-zero metamaterial. The proposed strategy is universal and can be applied to any kind of two-dimensional dissipative materials lying on epsilon-near-zero metamaterial. The proposed absorber does not rely on surface patterning or texturing and hence is more appealing for device applications.