Port Reconfigurable Phase-Change Optical Resonator

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, reconfigurable optical resonator using phase-change material VO2, capable of switching between one-port and two-port configurations for efficient, reversible optical modulation with wide-angle operation.

Contribution

The work demonstrates a new port reconfigurable optical resonator leveraging phase-change materials, enabling continuous and reversible tuning between different optical states.

Findings

Achieves near-perfect absorption in one state and 92% transmission in another.

Reconfigurable between multiple intermediate states.

Compatible with wide-angle operation and robust against structural distortions.

Abstract

Active control and manipulation of electromagnetic waves are highly desirable for advanced photonic device technology, such as optical cloaking, active camouflage and information processing. Designing optical resonators with high ease-of-control and reconfigurability remains a open challenge thus far. Here we propose a novel mechanism to continuously reconfigure an optical resonator between one-port and two-port configurations via \emph{phase-change material} for efficient optical modulation. By incorporating a phase-change material VO$_2$ substrate into a photonic crystal optical resonator, we computationally show that the system behaves as a one-port device with near-perfect absorption and two-port device with high transmission up to 92% when VO$_2$ is in the metallic rutile phase and insulating monoclinic phase, respectively. The optical response can be continuously and reversibly modulated between various intermediate states. More importantly, the proposed device is compatible with wide-angle operation and is robust against structural distortion. Our findings reveal a novel device architecture of \emph{port reconfigurable} optical resonator uniquely enabled by switchable optical properties of phase change material.