Electro-optic polymer and silicon nitride hybrid spatial light modulators based on a metasurface

Abstract

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) are important for various applications in photonics, such as near-infrared imaging, beam steering and optical communication. After decades of advances, current commercial devices are typically limited to kilohertz modulating speeds. To realize higher operating speeds, an electro-optic (EO) polymer and silicon nitride hybrid SLM has been demonstrated in this work. We utilize a specially designed metasurface to support a relatively high quality resonance and simultaneously confine most of the incident light in the active EO polymer layer. Combing with the high EO coefficient of the polymer, a clear modulation at 10 MHz with a driving voltage of Vp-p=±10 V has been observed in the proof-of-concept device. Our first-generation device leaves vast room for further improvement and may open an attractive route towards compact SLM with an RF modulation higher than 100 GHz.

Manipulating Dual Bound States in the Continuum for Efficient Spatial Light Modulator

“…At f mod = 75 MHz, the maximal modulation is about 62% of its maximal value (realized by 1 MHz), which further confirms the f 3 dB of the device. It is worth noting that compared to most of the previous work based on electrically driven SLMs with various active materials, − ,,− our BP-array based SLM shows a superior modulation depth and speed in the telecommunicate wavelength regime (Figure h and Supplementary Table 1).…”

Tunable Metasurface Using Thin-Film Lithium Niobate in the Telecom Regime

“…The experimental results correspond very well to the numerical simulations and the analytic prediction. Recent works on EO optical tuning, including tunable polymers 59 and organic layers such as JRD1:PMMA 60,61 on metasurfaces, exhibit a high spectral shift of Δλ = 11 nm but use a higher applied voltage, which yields merely…”

“…The experimental results correspond very well to the numerical simulations and the analytic prediction. Recent works on EO optical tuning, including tunable polymers and organic layers such as JRD1:PMMA , on metasurfaces, exhibit a high spectral shift of Δλ = 11 nm but use a higher applied voltage, which yields merely , half of the spectral shift we achieved in our device. Nevertheless, these works have presented materials with higher EO coefficients above r 33 = 100 pm/V compared to LiNbO r 13 = 10.12 pm/V we used.…”

“…By doing so, the applied electric field will be higher for a given applied voltage, and consequently, a larger spectral shift per volt is expected. An additional option to reduce the modulation voltage is using materials with a higher EO coefficient, as mentioned above. − …”

Nano-electromechanical spatial light modulator enabled by asymmetric resonant dielectric metasurfaces

“…Achieving similar spatial resolution but with an active metasurface would enable high-speed and high-resolution SLMs in a compact footprint 10 . Many seminal works have been proposed in the context of the active metasurfaces, using various active materials or mechanisms such as transparent conducting oxides 1 , 11 , 12 , liquid crystals 13 , electro-optic materials 14 – 17 , phase-change materials 18 , 2D materials 19 – 22 , electromechanical systems 23 – 28 , and semiconductors 29 . The active plasmonic metasurfaces based on transparent conducting oxides 1 , 11 , 12 have successfully achieved complex modulation.…”