Tunable Bound States in the Continuum in a Reconfigurable Terahertz Metamaterial

Abstract Bound states in the continuum (BIC) is an exotic concept describing systems without radiative loss. BICs are widely investigated in optics due to numerous potential applications including lasing, sensing, and filtering, among others. This study introduces a structurally tunable BIC terahertz metamaterial fabricated using micromachining and experimentally characterized using terahertz time domain spectroscopy. Control of the bending angle of the metamaterial by thermal actuation modifies the capacitance enabling tuning from a quasi‐BIC state with a quality factor of 26 to the BIC state. The dynamic response from the quasi‐BIC state to the BIC state is achieved by blueshifting the resonant frequency of the LC mode while maintaining a constant resonant frequency for the dipole mode. Additional insight into the tunable electromagnetic response is obtained using temporal coupled mode theory (CMT). The results reveal the effectiveness of bi‐layer cantilever‐based structures to realize tunable BIC metamaterials with potential applications for nonlinear optics and light‐matter control at terahertz frequencies.