Reconfigurable room temperature metamaterial infrared emitter

Journal Article · 13 April 2017 · Optica

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.4.000430 · OSTI ID:1474139

Liu, Xinyu ^[1]; Padilla, Willie J. ^[1]

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1. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States). Dept .of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The marriage of micro/nanoelectromechanical systems with metamaterials offers a viable route to achieving reconfigurable devices, which control the emission of energy. Here we propose and demonstrate the idea of a metamaterial microelectromechanical system (MEMS) capable of tailoring the energy emitted from a surface, without changing the temperature, but, instead, only altering the spectral emissivity. Our metamaterial achieves a range of emissivities equivalent to a nearly 20°C temperature change when viewed with a thermal infrared camera. We tessellate a surface with individually reconfigurable MEMS metamaterial pixels, thus realizing a spatiotemporal emitter capable of displaying thermal infrared patterns up to 110 kHz. Furthermore, our results may be scaled to nearly any sub-optical range of the electromagnetic spectrum, and validate the potential of MEMS metamaterials to operate as reconfigurable multifunctional devices with unprecedented energy control capabilities.

• Research Organization: Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0014372
• OSTI ID: 1474139
• Journal Information: Optica, Vol. 4, Issue 4; ISSN 2334-2536
• Publisher: Optical Society of AmericaCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English