Electrically driven reprogrammable vanadium dioxide metasurface using binary control for broadband beam-steering

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a thermally controlled, binary 1-bit reprogrammable vanadium dioxide metasurface capable of broadband beam steering over 90 degrees, simplifying design and control for optical phased arrays.

Contribution

It introduces a thermally optimized, binary-controlled nano-resonator antenna for broadband beam steering, overcoming limitations of continuous tuning methods.

Findings

Achieved continuous beam steering over 90 degrees.

Demonstrated broadband response from 1500 nm to 1700 nm.

Validated robustness against manufacturing imperfections.

Abstract

Resonant optical phased arrays are a promising way to reach fully reconfigurable metasurfaces in the optical and NIR regimes with low energy consumption, low footprint and high reliability. Continuously tunable resonant structures suffer from inherent drawbacks such as low phase range, amplitude-phase correlation or extreme sensitivity that makes precise control at the individual element level very challenging. In order to bypass these issues, we use 1-bit (binary) control for beam steering for an innovative nano-resonator antenna and explore the theoretical capabilities of such phased arrays. A thermally realistic structure based on vanadium dioxide sandwiched in a metal-insulator-metal structure is proposed and optimized using inverse design to enhance its performance at 1550 nm. Continuous beam steering over 90{\deg} range is successfully achieved using binary control, with excellent agreement with predictions based on the theoretical first principles description of phased arrays. Furthermore a broadband response from 1500 nm to 1700 nm is achieved. The robustness of the design manufacturing imperfections is also demonstrated. This simplified approach can be implemented to optimize tunable nanophotonic phased array metasurfaces based on other materials or phased shifting mechanisms for various functionalities.