Tunable beam manipulation based on phase-change metasurfaces.

Abstract

A metasurface combined with phase-change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) is proposed to act as a switchable wave plate to adjust spin-orbit interactions (SOIs), so that the polarization and phase of the reflected light are simultaneously manipulated. A converter, which could act as a quarter-wave plate or three-quarter-wave plate when the GST layer is in the amorphous or crystalline state, and a switch, which could act as a mirror (corresponding to the "OFF" state of SOIs) or half-wave plate (corresponding to the "ON" state of SOIs) when the GST layer is in the amorphous or crystalline state, are designed, respectively. Consequently, a convertible vectorial beams converter, which could generate radial or azimuthal polarization, is designed when the GST layer is in the amorphous or crystalline state. In addition, a switchable vortex beam generator could realize orbital angular momentum with topological charge l=±2 when the GST layer changes from amorphous to the crystalline state. The designed metasurface could offer a promising route for high-efficiency reconfigurable devices and encrypted optical communications.