IEEE Photonics Journal (Jan 2019)

Thermally Reconfigurable Meta-Optics

  • Tomer Lewi,
  • Nikita A. Butakov,
  • Hayden A. Evans,
  • Mark W. Knight,
  • Prasad P. Iyer,
  • David Higgs,
  • Hamid Chorsi,
  • Juan Trastoy,
  • Javier Del Valle Granda,
  • Ilya Valmianski,
  • Christian Urban,
  • Yoav Kalcheim,
  • Paul Y. Wang,
  • Philip W.C. Hon,
  • Ivan K. Schuller,
  • Jon A. Schuller

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOT.2019.2916161
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 2
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Metasurfaces are two-dimensional nanostructures that allow unprecedented control of light through engineering the amplitude, phase, and polarization across meta-atom resonators. Adding tunability to metasurface components would boost their potential and unlock a vast array of new application possibilities such as dynamic beam steering, tunable metalenses, and reconfigurable meta-holograms, to name a few. We present here high-index meta-atoms, resonators, and metasurfaces reconfigured by thermal effects, across the near to mid-infrared spectral ranges. We study thermal tunability in group IV and group IV-VI semiconductors, as well as in phase-transition materials, and demonstrate large dynamic resonance frequency shifts accompanied by significant amplitude and phase modulation in metasurfaces and resonators. We highlight the importance of high-Q resonances along with peak performance of thermal and thermo-optic effects, for efficient and practical reconfigurable devices. This paper paves the way to efficient high-Q reconfigurable and active infrared metadevices.

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