Phase Modulation with Electrically Tunable Vanadium Dioxide Phase-Change Metasurfaces.

Kim, Yonghwi; Wu, Pin Chieh; Sokhoyan, Ruzan; Mauser, Kelly; Glaudell, Rebecca; Kafaie Shirmanesh, Ghazaleh; Atwater, Harry A · Nano Lett · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We report a dynamically tunable reflectarray metasurface that continuously modulates the phase of reflected light in the near-infrared wavelength range under active electrical control of the phase transition from semiconducting to semimetallic states. We integrate a vanadium dioxide (VO<sub>2</sub>) active layer into the dielectric gap of antenna elements in a reflectarray metasurface, which undergoes an insulator-to-metal transition upon resistive heating of the metallic patch antenna. The induced phase transition in the VO<sub>2</sub> film strongly perturbs the magnetic dipole resonance supported by the metasurface. By carefully controlling the volume fractions of coexisting metallic and dielectric regions of the VO<sub>2</sub> film, we observe a continuous shift of the phase of the reflected light, with a maximal achievable phase shift as high as 250°. We also observe a reflectance modulation of 23.5% as well as a spectral shift of the resonance position by 175 nm. The metasurface phase modulation is fairly broadband, yielding large phase shifts at multiple operation wavelengths.