Tunable trapping and releasing light in graded graphene-silica metamaterial waveguide.

We present a detailed study on trapping and releasing of light in a graded graphene-silica metamaterial waveguide. By applying proper gate voltages onto the graphene layers, the metamaterial with graded-permittivity has the ability to trap the light due to the vanishing of normalized optical power flow between forward and backward modes. Based on the effective medium theory, the distributions of modes and the transmission characteristics of normalized power flows are investigated. Theoretical investigation shows that the waveguide has the ability to turn on or off the mid-infrared light from 5400 nm to 5800 nm. Moreover, adjusting the voltages on graphene layers can alter the bandwidth of trapped light. The graded metamaterial waveguide can be the candidate for multi-wavelength absorber based on the light trapping effect.