Tunable terahertz metamaterials by means of piezoelectric MEMS actuators

Lalas, Antonios; Kantartzis, Nikolaos V.; Tsiboukis, T.D.

doi:10.1209/0295-5075/107/58004

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In the piezoelectric actuator, an applied DC voltage across the electrodes of a piezoelectric material, such as lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 ), aluminum nitride (AlN), zinc oxide (ZnO) and lead zirconate titanate (PZT), results in a net strain that is proportional to the magnitude of the electric field and leads to the displacement. Although the piezoelectric actuator can also tune the unit cell of metamaterials [77], it causes unnecessary difficulties in the wafer-level fabrication without introducing unique advantages so that it is hardly employed as the actuating method. However, the piezoactuated MEMS metamaterials can be applied to portable and compact devices when high density integration is not necessary.…”

Section: Mems Actuation Methods For Metamaterialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

2020

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Metamaterials, consisting of subwavelength resonant structures, can be artificially engineered to yield desired response to electromagnetic waves. In contrast to the naturally existing materials whose properties are limited by their chemical compositions and structures, the optical response of metamaterials is controlled by the geometrics of resonant unit cells, called “meta-atoms”. Many exotic functionalities such as negative refractive index, cloaking, perfect absorber, have been realized in metamaterials. One recent technical advance in this field is the active metamaterial, in which the structure of metamaterials can be tuned to realize multiple states in a single device. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology, well-known for its ability of reconfiguring mechanical structures, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatibility and low power consumption, is perfectly suitable for such purpose. In the past one decade, we have seen numerous exciting works endeavoring to incorporate the novel MEMS functionalities with metamaterials for widespread applications. In this review, we will first visit the fundamental theories of MEMS-based active metamaterials, such as the lumped circuit model, coupled-mode theory, and interference theory. Then, we summarize the recent applications of MEMS-based metamaterials in various research fields. Finally, we provide an outlook on the future research directions of MEMS-based metamaterials and their possible applications.

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Section: Mems Actuation Methods For Metamaterialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

2020

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“…Piezoelectric actuation is another approach to drive optical metamaterials using the converse piezoelectric effect, which actuates mechanical displacements at the scale of micrometers with a driving voltage of a few volts 70 . Piezoelectric actuators can be integrated into metallic metamaterial unit cells, such as SRRs, to control the unit cell geometry, which in turn modulates the EM response 71 . Piezoelectric materials can serve as the unit cell to achieve controllable permeability 72 and tune the response of the resonators 73 .…”

Section: Metamaterials and Mems/nemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating microsystems with metamaterials towards metadevices

Zhao

Duan

et al. 2019

Microsyst Nanoeng

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Electromagnetic metamaterials, which are a major type of artificially engineered materials, have boosted the development of optical and photonic devices due to their unprecedented and controllable effective properties, including electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. Metamaterials consist of arrays of subwavelength unit cells, which are also known as meta-atoms. Importantly, the effective properties of metamaterials are mainly determined by the geometry of the constituting subwavelength unit cells rather than their chemical composition, enabling versatile designs of their electromagnetic properties. Recent research has mainly focused on reconfigurable, tunable, and nonlinear metamaterials towards the development of metamaterial devices, namely, metadevices, via integrating actuation mechanisms and quantum materials with meta-atoms. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), or microsystems, provide powerful platforms for the manipulation of the effective properties of metamaterials and the integration of abundant functions with metamaterials. In this review, we will introduce the fundamentals of metamaterials, approaches to integrate MEMS with metamaterials, functional metadevices from the synergy, and outlooks for metamaterial-enabled photonic devices.

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“…The versatility of MEMS design has enabled active manipulation of numerous THz properties such as magnetic resonance, [19][20][21][22] electrical resonance, [23][24][25] anisotropy, [ 26 ] broadband response, [ 27 ] isotropic resonance switching [ 28 ] multiresonance switching, [29][30][31] and coupling strength between resonators. [ 32 ] The enhanced controllability and direct integration of MEMS actuators into metamaterial unit cell geometry is an ideal fi t for the realization of selective control of coupled mode resonators.…”

Section: Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Control of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Analog in Terahertz MEMS Metamaterial

Pitchappa

Manjappa

et al. 2016

Advanced Optical Materials

212

120

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541wileyonlinelibrary.com COMMUNICATIONand their possible applications. The ultimate form of active manipulation of EIT phenomenon will be when all three primary parameters are controlled independently. The independent control of individual resonators demands for the controllability at unit cell level, and conventional approaches such as optical pumping of photoconductive elements or thermally controlled superconductor are restricted to provide only global control.Recently, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based tunable metamaterials have been reported to achieve controllability at unit cell level, along with the added advantage of being electrically controlled, miniaturized size and enhanced electrooptic performance. The versatility of MEMS design has enabled active manipulation of numerous THz properties such as magnetic resonance, [19][20][21][22] electrical resonance, [23][24][25] anisotropy, [ 26 ] broadband response, [ 27 ] isotropic resonance switching [ 28 ] multiresonance switching, [29][30][31] and coupling strength between resonators. [ 32 ] The enhanced controllability and direct integration of MEMS actuators into metamaterial unit cell geometry is an ideal fi t for the realization of selective control of coupled mode resonators. In this Communication, reconfi gurable metamaterial with independently controlled bright and dark mode resonators is proposed for advanced manipulation of the classical analog of EIT and slow light effects in THz spectral region. The active control of bright mode resonator enables modulation of EIT intensity, while the tuning of dark mode resonance causes the EIT peak to tune in frequency. Furthermore, simultaneous switching of bright and dark mode resonators results in dynamic switching of the system between coupled and uncoupled states. The proposed approach of selective reconfi guration can be scaled for multiresonator systems, which can be coupled either through inductive, capacitive, or conductive means.The metamaterial consists of 80 × 80 periodic array of cut wire resonator (CWR) with closely placed split ring resonators (SRRs), as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2 . The periodicity of unit cell is 100 µm along both axial directions. The CWR has length, l C = 60 µm and width, w C = 5 µm, respectively. The SRRs have a base length, b S = 30 µm, side length, l S = 20 µm, and split gap, g S = 4 µm. The SRRs are placed at a distance of S = 2 µm from the CWR. When the polarization of the excitation fi eld is along the CWR arm, the dipole mode resonance of the CWR will be the bright mode and the inductive-capacitive (LC) mode of SRR resonance acts as the dark mode. Thus for the incident THz polarization, the direct excitation of the bright mode induces image charges on the nearby SRRs through nearfi eld inductive coupling, thereby exciting the LC resonance of the SRRs. These bright-dark resonances have contrasting line widths with identical resonance frequencies and under a strong coupling regime they experience an EIT-type of interference that gives rise to a sharp transm...

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Tunable terahertz metamaterials by means of piezoelectric MEMS actuators

Cited by 14 publications

References 13 publications

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

Integrating microsystems with metamaterials towards metadevices

Active Control of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Analog in Terahertz MEMS Metamaterial

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