Broadband Liquid Crystal Tunable Metasurfaces in the Visible: Liquid Crystal Inhomogeneities Across the Metasurface Parameter Space

Dolan, James A.; Cai, Haogang; Delalande, Lily; Li, Xiao; Martinson, Alex F.; de Pablo, Juan J.; López, Daniel; Nealey, Paul F.

doi:10.1021/acsphotonics.0c01599

Broadband Liquid Crystal Tunable Metasurfaces in the Visible: Liquid Crystal Inhomogeneities Across the Metasurface Parameter Space

Journal Article · Thu Jan 14 23:00:00 EST 2021 · ACS Photonics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.0c01599· OSTI ID:1840554

^[1]; ^[2]; Delalande, Lily ^[3]; ^[4]; ^[5]; ^[1]; López, Daniel ^[6]; ^[1]

Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
New York Univ. (NYU), NY (United States)
Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
Univ. of North Texas, Denton, TX (United States)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)

Optical metasurfaces—planar nanostructured devices that can arbitrarily tailor the wavefront of light—may be reconfigured by changing their dielectric environment. The application of external stimuli to liquid crystals is a particularly promising means of tuning the optical properties of embedded metasurfaces because of liquid crystals' large and broadband optical anisotropy. However, the detailed behavior of liquid crystals immediately adjacent to the nanostructured meta-atoms elements is often overlooked, despite the optics of the device depending sensitively on this behavior (e.g., the spectral position of the meta-atom resonances). This is of increasing concern as the wavelength of operation further approaches the short-wavelength end of the visible spectrum and, therefore, the length scale of the inhomogeneities in the liquid crystal director field. In this manuscript, we undertake a fully comprehensive study, across the metasurface geometrical parameter space, of broadband (450-700 nm) all-dielectric liquid crystal tunable metasurfaces operating in the visible. Here, through combined experimental characterization, liquid crystal modeling, and optical simulations, we reveal and quantify the improved accuracy with which the optical properties of the liquid crystal tunable metasurfaces may be described, and identify the underlying physical mechanism: the three-dimensional spatial overlap of the liquid crystal director field and metasurface optical near fields in the vicinity of the meta-atoms.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1840554

Journal Information:: ACS Photonics, Journal Name: ACS Photonics Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 8; ISSN 2330-4022

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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