Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states

Abstract

We present that the ability to control the light-matter interaction with an external stimulus is a very active area of research since it creates exciting new opportunities for designing optoelectronic devices. Recently, plasmonic metasurfaces have proven to be suitable candidates for achieving a strong light-matter interaction with various types of optical transitions, including intersubband transitions (ISTs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs). For voltage modulation of the light-matter interaction, plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to ISTs offer unique advantages since the parameters determining the strength of the interaction can be independently engineered. In this work, we report a proof-of-concept demonstration of a new approach to voltage-tune the coupling between ISTs in QWs and a plasmonic metasurface. In contrast to previous approaches, the IST strength is here modified via control of the electron populations in QWs located in the near field of the metasurface. By turning on and off the ISTs in the semiconductor QWs, we observe a modulation of the optical response of the IST coupled metasurface due to modulation of the coupled light-matter states. Because of the electrostatic design, our device exhibits an extremely low leakage current of ~6 pA at a maximum operating bias of +1 V and therefore very lowmore » power dissipation. Finally, our approach provides a new direction for designing voltage-tunable metasurface-based optical modulators.« less

Authors:
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  2. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
  3. Northrop Grumman Corporation, Redondo Beach, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
OSTI Identifier:
1485838
Report Number(s):
SAND-2018-12655J
Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951; 670031
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Applied Physics Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 113; Journal Issue: 20; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION; 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS

Citation Formats

Sarma, Raktim, Campione, Salvatore, Goldflam, Michael, Shank, Joshua, Noh, Jinhyun, Le, Loan T., Lange, Michael D., Ye, Peide D., Wendt, Joel, Ruiz, Isaac, Howell, Stephen W., Sinclair, Michael, Wanke, Michael C., and Brener, Igal. A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1063/1.5055013.
Copy to clipboard
Sarma, Raktim, Campione, Salvatore, Goldflam, Michael, Shank, Joshua, Noh, Jinhyun, Le, Loan T., Lange, Michael D., Ye, Peide D., Wendt, Joel, Ruiz, Isaac, Howell, Stephen W., Sinclair, Michael, Wanke, Michael C., & Brener, Igal. A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5055013
Copy to clipboard
Sarma, Raktim, Campione, Salvatore, Goldflam, Michael, Shank, Joshua, Noh, Jinhyun, Le, Loan T., Lange, Michael D., Ye, Peide D., Wendt, Joel, Ruiz, Isaac, Howell, Stephen W., Sinclair, Michael, Wanke, Michael C., and Brener, Igal. Tue . "A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5055013. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485838.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1485838,
title = {A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states},
author = {Sarma, Raktim and Campione, Salvatore and Goldflam, Michael and Shank, Joshua and Noh, Jinhyun and Le, Loan T. and Lange, Michael D. and Ye, Peide D. and Wendt, Joel and Ruiz, Isaac and Howell, Stephen W. and Sinclair, Michael and Wanke, Michael C. and Brener, Igal},
abstractNote = {We present that the ability to control the light-matter interaction with an external stimulus is a very active area of research since it creates exciting new opportunities for designing optoelectronic devices. Recently, plasmonic metasurfaces have proven to be suitable candidates for achieving a strong light-matter interaction with various types of optical transitions, including intersubband transitions (ISTs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs). For voltage modulation of the light-matter interaction, plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to ISTs offer unique advantages since the parameters determining the strength of the interaction can be independently engineered. In this work, we report a proof-of-concept demonstration of a new approach to voltage-tune the coupling between ISTs in QWs and a plasmonic metasurface. In contrast to previous approaches, the IST strength is here modified via control of the electron populations in QWs located in the near field of the metasurface. By turning on and off the ISTs in the semiconductor QWs, we observe a modulation of the optical response of the IST coupled metasurface due to modulation of the coupled light-matter states. Because of the electrostatic design, our device exhibits an extremely low leakage current of ~6 pA at a maximum operating bias of +1 V and therefore very low power dissipation. Finally, our approach provides a new direction for designing voltage-tunable metasurface-based optical modulators.},
doi = {10.1063/1.5055013},
journal = {Applied Physics Letters},
number = 20,
volume = 113,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Tue Nov 13 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5055013
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

Room temperature terahertz polariton emitter
journal, October 2012

  • Geiser, Markus; Scalari, Giacomo; Castellano, Fabrizio
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4757611

Tunneling assisted modulation of the intersubband absorption in double quantum wells
journal, July 1991

  • Vodjdani, N.; Vinter, B.; Berger, V.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 59, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.105384

Control of Strong Light–Matter Coupling Using the Capacitance of Metamaterial Nanocavities
journal, February 2015

  • Benz, Alexander; Campione, Salvatore; Klem, John F.
  • Nano Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1021/nl504815c

Electrical Modulation of Fano Resonance in Plasmonic Nanostructures Using Graphene
journal, December 2013

  • Emani, Naresh K.; Chung, Ting-Fung; Kildishev, Alexander V.
  • Nano Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1021/nl403253c

Electrically Tunable Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) Metafilm Absorbers
journal, November 2015

  • Park, Junghyun; Kang, Ju-Hyung; Liu, Xiaoge
  • Scientific Reports, Vol. 5, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/srep15754

Graphene plasmonics for tunable terahertz metamaterials
journal, September 2011

Low dissipation spectral filtering using a field-effect tunable III–V hybrid metasurface
journal, August 2018

  • Sarma, Raktim; Campione, Salvatore; Goldflam, Michael
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.5042662

Strong Coupling between Nanoscale Metamaterials and Phonons
journal, May 2011

  • Shelton, D. J.; Brener, I.; Ginn, J. C.
  • Nano Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1021/nl200689z

Ultrafast Electrically Tunable Polaritonic Metasurfaces
journal, July 2014

  • Lee, Jongwon; Jung, Seungyong; Chen, Pai-Yen
  • Advanced Optical Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1002/adom.201400185

Second harmonic generation from metamaterials strongly coupled to intersubband transitions in quantum wells
journal, March 2014

  • Campione, Salvatore; Benz, Alexander; Sinclair, Michael B.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 13
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4870072

Gate-Tunable Conducting Oxide Metasurfaces
journal, August 2016

Electrical Switching of Infrared Light Using Graphene Integration with Plasmonic Fano Resonant Metasurfaces
journal, January 2015

  • Dabidian, Nima; Kholmanov, Iskandar; Khanikaev, Alexander B.
  • ACS Photonics, Vol. 2, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1021/ph5003279

Dynamic Reflection Phase and Polarization Control in Metasurfaces
journal, December 2016

Tunable metamaterials based on voltage controlled strong coupling
journal, December 2013

  • Benz, Alexander; Montaño, Inès; Klem, John F.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 26
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4859636

Ultrastrong Coupling of the Cyclotron Transition of a 2D Electron Gas to a THz Metamaterial
journal, March 2012

Interaction between metamaterial resonators and intersubband transitions in semiconductor quantum wells
journal, May 2011

  • Gabbay, Alon; Reno, John; Wendt, Joel R.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 20
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3592266

Negative differential photoconductance in an alternately doped multiple quantum well structure
journal, June 1988

  • Choi, K. K.; Levine, B. F.; Bethea, C. G.
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 52, Issue 23
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.99596

Field-Effect Tunable and Broadband Epsilon-Near-Zero Perfect Absorbers with Deep Subwavelength Thickness
journal, December 2017

Electrodynamic modeling of strong coupling between a metasurface and intersubband transitions in quantum wells
journal, April 2014

Electrically Tunable Metasurface Perfect Absorbers for Ultrathin Mid-Infrared Optical Modulators
journal, October 2014

  • Yao, Yu; Shankar, Raji; Kats, Mikhail A.
  • Nano Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1021/nl503104n

Phased-array sources based on nonlinear metamaterial nanocavities
journal, July 2015

  • Wolf, Omri; Campione, Salvatore; Benz, Alexander
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8667

Ultrathin Second‐Harmonic Metasurfaces with Record‐High Nonlinear Optical Response
journal, February 2016

  • Lee, Jongwon; Nookala, Nishant; Gomez‐Diaz, J. Sebastian
  • Advanced Optical Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1002/adom.201500723

Giant nonlinear response from plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to intersubband transitions
journal, July 2014

  • Lee, Jongwon; Tymchenko, Mykhailo; Argyropoulos, Christos
  • Nature, Vol. 511, Issue 7507
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature13455

Experimental Demonstration of >230° Phase Modulation in Gate-Tunable Graphene–Gold Reconfigurable Mid-Infrared Metasurfaces
journal, April 2017

Monolithic metallic nanocavities for strong light-matter interaction to quantum-well intersubband excitations
journal, January 2013

Electron transfer in voltage tunable two-color infrared photodetectors
journal, April 2002

  • Majumdar, Amlan; Choi, K. K.; Rokhinson, L. P.
  • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 91, Issue 7
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1455684

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy approach for measurements of photoluminescence and electroluminescence in mid-infrared
journal, May 2012

  • Zhang, Y. G.; Gu, Y.; Wang, K.
  • Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 83, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4717673

Epsilon-Near-Zero Strong Coupling in Metamaterial-Semiconductor Hybrid Structures
journal, October 2013

  • Jun, Young Chul; Reno, John; Ribaudo, Troy
  • Nano Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1021/nl402939t

Strong coupling in the sub-wavelength limit using metamaterial nanocavities
journal, November 2013

  • Benz, A.; Campione, S.; Liu, S.
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Article No. 2882
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3882

Giant nonlinear response from plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to intersubband transitions
conference, January 2014

Room temperature terahertz polariton emitter
text, January 2012

Experimental Demonstration of >230° Phase Modulation in Gate-Tunable Graphene-Gold Reconfigurable Mid-Infrared Metasurfaces
text, January 2017

    Sort by:
    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Dynamic beam steering with all-dielectric electro-optic III–V multiple-quantum-well metasurfaces
    journal, August 2019

    • Wu, Pin Chieh; Pala, Ragip A.; Kafaie Shirmanesh, Ghazaleh
    • Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1
    • DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11598-8

    Semiconductor infrared plasmonics
    journal, May 2019

      Sort by:
      [ × clear filter / sort ]

      Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections: