Active modulation of electromagnetically induced transparency analogue in terahertz hybrid metal-graphene metamaterials

Metamaterial analogues of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) have been intensively studied and widely employed for slow light and enhanced nonlinear effects. In particular, the active modulation of the EIT analogue and well-controlled group delay in metamaterials have shown great prospects in optical communication networks. Here we integrate a monolayer graphene into metal-based terahertz (THz) metamaterials, and realize a complete modulation in the resonance strength of the EIT analogue via manipulating the Fermi level of graphene. The physical mechanism lies in the active tuning of the damping rate of the dark mode resonator through the recombination effect of the conductive graphene. This work presents a novel modulation strategy of the EIT analogue in the hybrid metamaterials, and paves the way towards designing very compact slow light devices to meet the future demand of ultrafast optical signal processing. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.