Tunable optical metasurfaces enabled by multiple modulation mechanisms

Abstract

With their ultrathin characteristics as well as the powerful and flexible capabilities of wavefront modulation, optical metasurfaces have brought a new understanding of the interaction between light and matter and provided a powerful way to constrain and manage light. However, the unmodifiable structures and the immutable materials used in the construction lead to the unsatisfactory applications in most functional devices. The emergence of tunable optical metasurfaces breaks the aforementioned limitations and enables us to achieve dynamic control of the optical response. The work in recent years has focused on achieving tunability of optical metasurfaces through material property transition and structural reconfiguration. In this review, some tunable optical metasurfaces in recent years are introduced and summarized, as well as the advantages and limitations of various materials and mechanisms used for this purpose. The corresponding applications in functional devices based on tunability are also discussed. The review is terminated with a short section on the possible future developments and perspectives for future applications.

Keywords

• dynamic control
• electrical/chemical tuning
• phase transition
• photoinduced modulation
• structural reconfiguration
• thermo-optical
• tunable metasurface