Abstract
Shortening of switching times of various soft-matter-based tunable metamaterials is one of the key challenges to improve the functionality of modern active devices. Here we show an effective strategy in the evolution of soft-matter-based tunable metamaterials that makes possible acceleration of both on and off switching processes by using a dual-frequency liquid crystal mixture. The frequency-convertible dielectric anisotropy of the dual-frequency mixture enabled us to create a fast-response in-plane switching metasurface at the nanoscale, which could be tuned by an electrical signal with different frequencies. The results clearly show that the resonance of the metamaterial can be continuously and reversibly controlled within a wavelength range of 100 nm as the applied frequency is inverted between 1 kHz and 40 kHz, with a total response time (τ = τON + τOFF) of 1.89 ms. Furthermore, experimental characteristics of the hybrid metamaterial are in great agreement with numerical calculations, which allow us to anticipate active epsilon-near-zero behavior of the metadevice. This work indicates the future development direction of liquid-crystal-based active plasmonic systems.
Highlights
Shortening of switching times of various soft-matter-based tunable metamaterials is one of the key challenges to improve the functionality of modern active devices
Buchnev et al considered a near-infrared active metasurface functionalized with a nematic liquid crystals (LCs) (NLC), which helped to overcome the problem of strong anchoring and involved, for the first time, design of electrically controlled nanoscale in-plane switching (IPS) of the LC molecular orientation[17]
Another important phenomenon resulting from structuring properties of liquid crystals, is stiction suppression in LC hybrid metamaterial nano-electro-mechanical systems, which was recently discovered by a group at Southampton[18]
Summary
Shortening of switching times of various soft-matter-based tunable metamaterials is one of the key challenges to improve the functionality of modern active devices. Buchnev et al considered a near-infrared active metasurface functionalized with a nematic LC (NLC), which helped to overcome the problem of strong anchoring and involved, for the first time, design of electrically controlled nanoscale in-plane switching (IPS) of the LC molecular orientation[17] Another important phenomenon resulting from structuring properties of liquid crystals, is stiction suppression in LC hybrid metamaterial nano-electro-mechanical systems, which was recently discovered by a group at Southampton[18]. By embedding the nanoscale metamaterial into an in-plane-switching cavity filled with dual-frequency LC (DFLC), we have fabricated a dynamically switchable metadevice with submillisecond response to electrical stimuli, about three orders of magnitude lower compared to metasurfaces loaded with NLCs. Importantly, does the hybrid system presented here allow ultra-fast switching of plasmonic resonance, we found that it exhibits tunable epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) properties. The designed DFLC mixture is characterized by a high birefringence that allows more efficient tuning of plasmonic properties[32,33]
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