Open Access

ARTICLE

2D MXene Ti₃C₂T_x Enhanced Plasmonic Absorption in Metasurface for Terahertz Shielding

Zaka Ullah^1,*, Muath Al Hasan1¹, Ismail Ben Mabrouk², Muhammad Junaid³, Fawad Sheikh⁴

1 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Al Ain University, Al Ain, 64141, UAE
2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Durham University, Durham, UK
3 Department of Electrical Engineering, Baluchistan University of Technology and management sciences, Quetta, Pakistan
4 Institute of Digital Signal Processing, Universitat Duisburg Essen, Duisburg, Germany

* Corresponding Author: Zaka Ullah. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2023, 75(2), 3453-3464. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2023.034704

Received 25 July 2022; Accepted 23 September 2022; Issue published 31 March 2023

Abstract

With the advancement of technology, shielding for terahertz (THz) electronic and communication equipment is increasingly important. The metamaterial absorption technique is mostly used to shield electromagnetic interference (EMI) in THz sensing technologies. The most widely used THz metamaterial absorbers suffer from their narrowband properties and the involvement of complex fabrication techniques. Materials with multifunctional properties, such as adjustable conductivity, broad bandwidth, high flexibility, and robustness, are driving future development to meet THz shielding applications. In this article, a theoretical simulation approach based on finite difference time domain (FDTD) is utilized to study the absorption and shielding characteristics of a two-dimensional (2D) MXene Ti₃C₂T_x metasurface absorber in the THz band. The proposed metamaterial structure is made up of a square-shaped array of MXene that is 50 nm thick and is placed on top of a silicon substrate. The bottom surface of the silicon is metalized with gold to reduce the transmission and ultimately enhance the absorption at 1–3 THz. The symmetric adjacent space between the MXene array results in a widening of bandwidth. The proposed metasurface achieves 96% absorption under normal illumination of the incident source and acquires an average of 25 dB shielding at 1 THz bandwidth, with the peak shielding reaching 65 dB. The results show that 2D MXene-based stacked metasurfaces can be proven in the realization of low-cost devices for THz shielding and sensing applications.

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