Nanoelectromechanical Tuning of High-<i>Q</i> Slot Metasurfaces.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37306317.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c00999 and PMC identifier 10311603.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Nanoelectromechanical devices have been used widely in many applications across photonics, electronics, and acoustics. Their incorporation into metasurface systems could be beneficial in designing new types of active photonic devices. Here, we propose a design of active metasurfaces using a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) composed of silicon bars which operates under CMOS-level voltage and achieves phase modulation with wavelength-scale pixel pitch. By introducing a perturbation to the slot mode propagating between the silicon bars, the device operates in a high-<i>Q</i> regime, making the optical mode highly sensitive to mechanical movement. An over 12 dB reflection modulation is observed by full-wave simulation, and over 10% is achieved in the proof-of-concept experiment under CMOS-level voltage. We also simulate a device with 1.8π phase response using a bottom gold mirror. Based on this device, a 3-pixel optical beam deflector is shown to have 75% diffraction efficiency.