Chalcogenide hyperbolic metamaterial with switchable negative refraction

2017/03/31 by Krishnamoorthy, Harish N. S., Gholipour, Behrad, Zheludev, Nikolay I. +1
#FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1703.10753

Abstract

Chalcogenide glasses are exceptional materials that show a wide contrast in optical properties upon phase change and are highly researched for reconfigurable electronic and nanophotonic devices. Here, we report the first proof-of-concept demonstration of a non-volatile, switchable hyperbolic metamaterial based on a chalcogenide glass. By using the Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) alloy as one of the components of a multilayered nanocomposite structure and exploiting its phase change property, we demonstrate a hyperbolic metamaterial in which the Type-I hyperbolic dispersion (ε_⊥ < 0, ε_∥ > 0) can be switched from the near infrared to the visible region. This opens up new opportunities for reconfigurable device applications, such as imaging, optical data storage and sensing.

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