Abstract
Electromagnetic metamaterials, which are a major type of artificially engineered materials, have boosted the development of optical and photonic devices due to their unprecedented and controllable effective properties, including electric permittivity and magnetic permeability. Metamaterials consist of arrays of subwavelength unit cells, which are also known as meta-atoms. Importantly, the effective properties of metamaterials are mainly determined by the geometry of the constituting subwavelength unit cells rather than their chemical composition, enabling versatile designs of their electromagnetic properties. Recent research has mainly focused on reconfigurable, tunable, and nonlinear metamaterials towards the development of metamaterial devices, namely, metadevices, via integrating actuation mechanisms and quantum materials with meta-atoms. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), or microsystems, provide powerful platforms for the manipulation of the effective properties of metamaterials and the integration of abundant functions with metamaterials. In this review, we will introduce the fundamentals of metamaterials, approaches to integrate MEMS with metamaterials, functional metadevices from the synergy, and outlooks for metamaterial-enabled photonic devices.
Highlights
1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; 1234567890():,; Introduction Electromagnetic (EM) metamaterials represent an important class of artificial materials composed of arrays of subwavelength unit-cell structures, which are known as meta-atoms, with engineered effective optical properties, such as effective permittivity and permeability
Further enhance the functionality of such metamaterials, current research is increasingly focusing on tunable, reconfigurable, nonlinear, and sensing metamaterials and shifting from fundamental research to practical applications, which is boosting the development of metamaterial devices or metadevices[10]
In a metamaterial-based terahertz modulator, as shown in Fig. 3d, Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) cantilevers were integrated in electric split ring resonators (ESRRs) meta-atoms to achieve a modulation depth of 16.5 dB at 480 GHz with a driving voltage of 40 V108
Summary
Micro/ nano-mechanical actuators are the enabling methods for controlling the structural properties of unit cells. This metamaterial design allows efficient coupling between the materials’ EM properties and the mechanical displacements of the unit cell components, enabling control of the propagation of light and, more generally, EM waves. Electrostatic actuation is broadly employed in MEMS due to its inherent advantages, including fast response, Magnetic
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