Temporal metamaterials with passive switching as impedance-matched absorbers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel class of temporal metamaterials with passive switching that act as impedance-matched absorbers, achieving wideband absorption and surpassing traditional bounds through effective medium engineering.

Contribution

It demonstrates the design of passive, time-varying metamaterials with simultaneous permittivity and permeability switching for wideband, impedance-matched absorption, extending the concept to potential 2D applications.

Findings

Achieves wideband impedance-matched absorption

Surpasses Rozanov bound with proposed design

Validates results with semi-analytical and full-wave simulations

Abstract

Recent experiments on temporal reflection in transmission line metamaterials and theoretical treatments of dispersive time-varying media have unearthed the fundamental role of modulation mechanisms on the interface conditions, underpinning the introduction of passive photonic time crystals with stable momentum band gaps. Drawing from these concepts, it is shown that temporal metamaterials with simultaneous passive permittivity and permeability switching exhibit wideband absorption with impedance-matching, effectively behaving as one-dimensional perfectly matched layers. Under the effective medium theory, the loss mechanism is attributed to the emergent effective electric and magnetic conductivities, which are used to derive an approximate matching condition for asynchronous modulation and to engineer lossy material properties. The proposed approach and its performance beyond the Rozanov bound are verified with semi-analytical calculations as well as full-wave simulations, and the possibility of realizing a two-dimensional temporal perfectly matched layer is discussed.