Reconfigurable THz and microwave metamaterials based on π-conjugated polymers

We demonstrate various types of reconfigurable metamaterials utilizing π-conjugated polymer in terahertz (THz) and microwave frequency ranges. Linear actuators made from heavily doped polypyrrole film are utilized to change the relative lateral position of two THz metasurfaces with a control voltage, and accordion-shaped origami actuators are used to change the distance between two microwave split-ring resonators (SRRs). In both cases this results in significant tunability of the metamaterial resonances with a change of bias voltage. SRR meta-atom made of rolled heavily doped polypyrrole film show tunable resonant characteristics under monochromatic continuous wave (CW) microwave pumping.