Kirigami metamaterials for reconfigurable toroidal circular dichroism

Abstract

The ancient paper craft of kirigami has recently emerged as a potential tool for the design of functional materials. Inspired by the kirigami concept, we propose a class of kirigami-based metamaterials whose electromagnetic functionalities can be switched between nonchiral and chiral states by stretching the predesigned split-ring resonator array. Single-band, dual-band, and broadband circular polarizers with reconfigurable performance are experimentally demonstrated with maximum circular dichroism of 0.88, 0.94, and 0.92, respectively. The underlying mechanism is explained and calculated via detailed analysis of the excited multipoles, including the electric, magnetic, and toroidal dipoles and quadrupole. Our approach enables tailoring the electromagnetic functionalities in kirigami patterns and provides an alternate avenue for reconfigurable optical metadevices with exceptional mechanical properties.

Toroidal Metaphotonics and Metadevices

“…[278,281,282] Later, with the development of planar metastructures based on flatland optics, wideband and multifunctional control of polarization and gain were accomplished. [283][284][285][286][287] Among them, the promise of toroidal metasurfaces in diverse applied directions has motivated researchers to employ these architectures for controlling the polarization of electromagnetic radiations (e.g., linear polarization conversion [288,289] and circular cross-polarization conversion [290,291] ).…”

“…[292][293][294][295][296] With the rise of toroidal resonances, high-performance reconfigurable instruments to control the polarization of light have become popular. Among them, Jing et al [291] utilized the Kirigami concept to conceive a novel type of metamaterial whose electromagnetic characteristics would be converted from nonchiral to chiral and vice versa at single-band, dualband, and broadband frequencies through stretching the arrays of toroidal-resonant metamolecules. They used periodic arrays of split-ring resonators on foldable sheets.…”

Tunable circular dichroism of chiral metamaterial based on phase transition of vanadium dioxide (VO2)

“…Many researches have been carried out to pursue a large circular dichroism from microwave to visible regions. Three-dimensional and planar chiral metamaterials such as helixshaped and L-shaped MMs [15,[19][20][21], bilayered structures [17,22,23], kirigami-based structures [24] and chiral oligomers [25,26] have been designed to study the effect of CD and other chiroptical responses. However, for most traditional metamaterials, CD responses are untunable as soon as the structures are fabricated, which limits their applications in programmable metamaterial, holography and electromagnetic phase modulations.…”

Origami Metawall: Mechanically Controlled Absorption and Deflection of Light

“…[38,39] Origami/kirigami, the ancient art of folding a sheet of paper into 3D decorative shapes, is not only an inspiring technique to create sophisticated shapes but also a surprisingly versatile platform to investigate a host of shape changing metadevices with customized functionalities. [38,39] Origami/kirigami, the ancient art of folding a sheet of paper into 3D decorative shapes, is not only an inspiring technique to create sophisticated shapes but also a surprisingly versatile platform to investigate a host of shape changing metadevices with customized functionalities.…”