Symmetry breaking of dark-mode metamaterials for voltage-switchable infrared absorption.

We propose electrically reconfigurable absorbers with switchable narrowband resonances in the infrared. Our absorbers consist of two coupled, identical resonators and support a dark supermode. We show that by dynamically breaking the symmetry of the system, the dark supermode can be made to couple to an incoming plane wave, producing a narrowband absorption peak in the spectrum. We use this effect to design and optimize absorbers consisting of coupled metal-insulator-metal resonators based on gallium arsenide. We show that the switching functionality of the designed device is robust to fabrication imperfections, and that it additionally serves as a spectrally tunable absorber. Our results suggest exciting possibilities for designing next-generation reconfigurable absorbers that could benefit several applications, such as energy harvesting and sensing.