Dirac semimetals based tunable narrowband absorber at terahertz frequencies

In this paper, a bulk Dirac semimetals (BDSs) based tunable narrowband absorber at terahertz frequencies is proposed and it has the attractive property of being polarization-independent at normal incidence because of its 90 degrees rotational symmetry. Numerical results show that the absorption bandwidth is about 1.469e-2 THz and the total quality factor Q, defined as Q = f(0)/Delta f, reaches about 94.6, which can be attributed to the low power loss of the guided mode resonance in the dielectric layer. The simulation results are analyzed with coupled mode theory. Interestingly, on the premise of maintaining the absorbance at a level greater than 0.95, the absorption frequency can be tuned from 1.381 to 1.395 THz by varying the Fermi energy of BDSs from 50 to 80 meV. Our results may also provide potential applications in optical filter and bio-chemical sensing. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement