Non-volatile MWIR/LWIR beam reconfigurability with all-dielectric metagratings comprising phase-change materials with a high-refractive-index shift
Nikolaos L. Tsitsas, Stavroula Foteinopoulou
Abstract
We propose an all-dielectric grating paradigm comprising an optical-phase-change-material (O-PCM), functional in the 5 μ m to 10 μ m spectral range. This system leverages the capabilities of a newly-discovered O-PCM [ Nat. Comm. 10 , 4279 ( 2019 ) 10.1038/s41467-019-12196-4 ], Ge 2 Sb 2 Se 4 Te 1 , which can be reliably switched between amorphous and crystalline phases at larger thicknesses close to 1 μ m, while exhibiting a high-refractive-index shift of about 1.5 and no optical loss in this spectral range. The amorphous-O-PCM grating predominantly responds as an effectively homogeneous slab, letting light through without perturbing its path. The crystalline-O-PCM grating supports leaky Floquet-Bloch modes, which, at certain wavelengths, can simultaneously interfere destructively into the primary light path and constructively into the back-bent diffraction channel, in transmission. This “accidental” interference effect steers the incident beam in the negative direction. At a slightly detuned wavelength, the output power can be evenly split between the primary light path and the back-bent diffraction channel. Hence, our all-dielectric O-PCM-based metagrating can function as a platform for non-volatile reconfigurable beam steering and splitting. We have designed the metagrating paradigm and predicted its reconfigurable behavior with a semi-analytical calculation method and then verified it with a numerical first-principles experiment. We believe these results are relevant to MWIR/LWIR applications, but can also inspire new means for programmable and reconfigurable photonics across the spectrum as new O-PCMs are being developed.