A metasurface optical modulator using voltage-controlled population of quantum well states
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
- Northrop Grumman Corporation, Redondo Beach, CA (United States)
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.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000; NA0003525
- OSTI ID:
- 1485838
- Report Number(s):
- SAND-2018-12655J; 670031
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 20; ISSN 0003-6951
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
Dynamic beam steering with all-dielectric electro-optic III–V multiple-quantum-well metasurfaces
|
journal | August 2019 |
Semiconductor infrared plasmonics
|
journal | May 2019 |
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