Active and accurate temperature control of terahertz functional devices via micro-hotplate system
Abstract Based on the problem that the intensity of excitation source is not easy to regulate by the traditional active control method, this paper presents an accurate temperature control system based on micro-hotplate for the first time. This system realizes the active control of terahertz metamaterial functional devices, and implements various functions by using the proposed accurate temperature control process. The temperature control characteristics of micro-hotplate are introduced into the design of terahertz functional devices by taking a vanadium dioxide (VO₂ ) metamaterial absorber as an example. In this design, a silicon-based micro-hotplate is used to heat the metamaterial absorber. According to the phase transition characteristics of VO₂ , the alteration of temperature leads to conductivity change, so as to realize the active control of the absorber. At the same time, this paper also analyzes the heating and cooling time of the micro-hotplate. The simulation results show that, by using the micro-hotplate to heat the metamaterial functional devices, the temperature adjustment speed is reasonably high and the controllable performance is excellent. The test results shows that the surface temperature can be controlled between 40 ℃ and 80 ℃ , and the temperature difference of the working area can be kept within 1℃ . The temperature control of the micro-hotplate is accurately controlled, resulting in the great performance of the metamaterial functional devices.