A photo-excited broadband tunable metamaterial absorber for use in the terahertz region was demonstrated.

The conductivity of the silicon used to fill the gap in the metallic resonator is tuned actively as a function of the incident pump power, which results in frequency modulation of the resonance absorption peak.

Broadband tunable metamaterial absorbers are produced by suitable placement of the photoconductive silicon in different critical regions of the metallic resonator.