Tunable dual-band and high-quality-factor perfect absorption based on VO2-assisted metasurfaces

Perfect absorbers with high quality factors (Q-factors) are of great practical significance for optical filtering and sensing. Moreover, tunable multiwavelength absorbers provide a multitude of possibilities for realizing multispectral light intensity manipulation and optical switches. In this study, we demonstrate the use of vanadium dioxide (VO2)-assisted metasurfaces for tunable dual-band and high-quality-factor perfect absorption in the mid-infrared region. In addition, we discuss the potential applications of these metasurfaces in reflective intensity manipulation and optical switching. The Q-factors of the dual-band perfect absorption in the proposed metasurfaces are greater than 1000, which can be attributed to the low radiative loss induced by the guided-mode resonances and low intrinsic loss from the constituent materials. By utilizing the insulator–metal transition in VO2, we further proved that a continuous tuning of the reflectance with a large modulation depth (31.8 dB) can be realized in the designed metasurface accompanied by a dual-channel switching effect. The proposed VO2-assisted metasurfaces have potential applications in dynamic and multifunctional optical devices, such as tunable multiband filters, mid-infrared biochemical sensors, optical switches, and optical modulators.