Tunable hyperbolic metamaterials utilizing phase change heterostructures

Journal Article · Mon Mar 24 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4869297· OSTI ID:22258615

Krishnamoorthy, Harish N. S.; Zhou, You; Ramanathan, Shriram ^[1]; Narimanov, Evgenii ^[2]

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1. School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)
2. Birck Nanotechnology Center, School of Computer and Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (United States)

We present a metal-free tunable anisotropic metamaterial where the iso-frequency surface is tuned from elliptical to hyperbolic dispersion by exploiting the metal-insulator phase transition in the correlated material vanadium dioxide (VO{sub 2}). Using VO{sub 2}-TiO{sub 2} heterostructures, we demonstrate the transition in the effective dielectric constant parallel to the layers to undergo a sign change from positive to negative as the VO{sub 2} undergoes the phase transition. The possibility to tune the iso-frequency surface in real time using external perturbations such as temperature, voltage, or optical pulses creates new avenues for controlling light-matter interaction.

• OSTI ID: 22258615
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ELECTRIC POTENTIAL
PERMITTIVITY
PERTURBATION THEORY
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
SURFACES
TITANIUM OXIDES
VANADIUM OXIDES