Dynamic beam steering with all-dielectric electro-optic III–V multiple-quantum-well metasurfaces

Abstract

Tunable metasurfaces enable dynamical control of the key constitutive properties of light at a subwavelength scale. To date, electrically tunable metasurfaces at near-infrared wavelengths have been realized using free carrier modulation, and switching of thermo-optical, liquid crystal and phase change media. However, the highest performance and lowest loss discrete optoelectronic modulators exploit the electro-optic effect in multiple-quantum-well heterostructures. Here, we report an all-dielectric active metasurface based on electro-optically tunable III–V multiple-quantum-wells patterned into subwavelength elements that each supports a hybrid Mie-guided mode resonance. The quantum-confined Stark effect actively modulates this volumetric hybrid resonance, and we observe a relative reflectance modulation of 270% and a phase shift from 0° to ~70°. Additionally, we demonstrate beam steering by applying an electrical bias to each element to actively change the metasurface period, an approach that can also realize tunable metalenses, active polarizers, and flat spatial light modulators.

Adaptive optical beam steering and tuning system based on electrowetting driven fluidic rotor

“…In recent years, there has been a resurgent interest in this area because of the demanding needs from many critical future photonics applications such as lidar for automated driving and 3D sensing for virtual reality (VR). As such, there have appeared numerous techniques to solve the problems associated with current beam steering schemes based on bulk optics [38][39][40][41] . However, most of these schemes still suffer from limited angular range, low speed and high optical loss, in contrast to the standard bulk-optic solutions that can cover almost all angles with very low loss.…”

A Review on the Development of Tunable Graphene Nanoantennas for Terahertz Optoelectronic and Plasmonic Applications

“…This study again exemplifies the tradeoff between compact size and wavelength response. Graphene has been used as a parasitic element in various research works, for example reconfigurable substrates [135] or high impedance surfaces [136,137].…”

Tunable metasurfaces for visible and SWIR applications

“…(3) Another proposed mechanism is based on altering Mie resonance condition [24,49], however, this idea has yet been realized in the visible or SWIR spectra. (4) The most recently physical mechanism is based on dynamic control of quantum-confined confined Stark effect [50].…”

“…Reproduced with permission from ©2018, Optical Society of America. b GaAs-based semiconductor heterostructure for tunable quantum-confined Stark effect [50]. Reproduced with permission from ©2019, Springer Nature.…”