Design, fabrication, and spectral characterization of temperature-dependent liquid crystal-based metamaterial to tune dielectric metasurface resonances

TL;DR

This study demonstrates temperature-controlled tuning of dielectric metasurface resonances using liquid crystal-embedded silicon nanodisks, achieving spectral shifts and mode manipulation in the infrared range.

Contribution

It introduces a novel temperature-dependent liquid crystal-based design for tuning dielectric metasurfaces, combining fabrication, simulation, and experimental spectral characterization.

Findings

Achieved 30nm spectral tunability in the infrared range.

Demonstrated control of electric and magnetic resonance modes.

Validated simulation results with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy.

Abstract

Tunable dielectric meta-surface nanostructures offer incredible performance in optical application due to their extraordinary tunability of the polarization and engineering the dispersion of light with low loss in infrared range. In this article, we designed and experimentally measured the tunability of all-dielectric subwavelength silicon nanoparticles with the help of the temperature-based refractive index of the liquid crystal in the telecom regime. The proposed structure composed of high dielectric nanodisk surrounded by nematic liquid crystal (NLC) is simulated with numerical software, assembled with pre-alignment material, and optically measured by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The simulated result is compatible with the practical measurements, shows that the tunability of 30nm is achieved. Electric and magnetic resonance modes of the high dielectric nanodisks are tailored in different rates by anisotropic temperature dependent NLC. The phase switching of anisotropic to isotropic nematic liquid crystal enables spectral tunning of the two modes of all dielectric metasurface and modifies the symmetry of the optical response of the metamaterial structure.