Modes Coupling Analysis of Surface Plasmon Polaritons Based Resonance Manipulation in Infrared Metamaterial Absorber

Programmable bandstop filter based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons

Spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) have been developed rapidly because of the advantages of strong field constraints, low inter-channel cross talk, and low loss. However, the functions of plasmonic devices made of traditional passive SSPPs are completely fixed and cannot reach reconfigurable capability once the devices are fabricated. For the current development status, it is an urgent issue to design a reconfigurable device to control SPP waves dynamically in real time. This paper proposes a dynamic reconfigurable bandstop filter by using the concept of programmable SSPPs. The filter has a significant regulation function in the wideband range from 4 GHz to 22 GHz. The center frequency, number, and bandwidth of the stop band can be reconstructed in real time by programming the bias voltage, and the transmission coefficient (S₂₁) has good transmission performance of more than -3dB. The results show that the experimental processing test is close to the theoretical simulation results, which proves the feasibility of the designed device. The study extends the functional principles of information science and digital logic to the application of physical devices.

Effect of Unit Cell Shape on Switchable Infrared Metamaterial VO2 Absorbers/Emitters

Metamaterial absorber/emitter is an important aspect of infrared radiation manipulation. In this paper, we proposed four simple switchable infrared metamaterial absorbers/emitters with Ag/VO₂ disks on the Ag plane employing triangle, square, hexagon, and circle unit cells. The spectral absorption peaks whose intensities are above 0.99 occur at ~4 μm after structure optimization when VO₂ is in insulating state and disappear when VO₂ becomes metallic state. The simulated electromagnetic field reveals that the spectral absorption peaks are attributed to the excitation of magnetic polariton within the insulating VO₂ spacer layer, whose values exceed 1.59 orders of magnitude higher than the incident magnetic field. Longer resonant wavelength would be excited in square arrays because its configuration is a better carrier of charges at the same spans. For absorption stability, the absorbers/emitters with square and circular structures do not have any change with the polarization angles changing from 0° to 90°, due to the high rotational symmetric structure. And four absorbers/emitters reveal similar shifts and attenuations under different incident angles. We believed that the switchable absorber/emitter demonstrates promising applications in the sensing technology and adaptive infrared system.

Direction-independent dual-band perfect absorption induced by fundamental magnetic polaritons

In this paper, we designed a single sized Metal-Insulator Pair-Metal hybrid grating for dual-band perfect absorption from 8 μm to 14 μm utilizing both nondispersive insulators and dispersive phonic insulators. The hybrid grating was composed of Al/ZnTe-SiC pair/Al, which incorporated an ultrathin phononic SiC layer between the nondispersive ZnTe dielectric spacer and Al substrate. The physical mechanisms responsible for the dual-band perfect absorption were elucidated by the resonance of fundamental magnetic polaritons (MPs). Dual-band perfect absorption with incident angle insensitive feature was enabled. An equivalent LC circuit model predicting the dual-band resonant absorption peaks wavelengths was proposed and verified. Furthermore, the effects of grating period, strip width, nondispersive dielectric spacer thickness and polar phononic dielectric spacer thickness on the absorption were explored.

The Role of Rayleigh-Wood Anomalies and Surface Plasmons in Optical Enhancement for Nano-Gratings

We propose and report on the design of a 1-D metallo-dielectric nano-grating on a GaAs substrate. We numerically study the impact of grating period, slit and wire widths, and irradiating angle of incidence on the optical response. The optimal wire width, w = 160 nm, was chosen based on previous results from investigations into the influence of wire width and nano-slit dimensions on optical and electrical enhancements in metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors. In this present project, resonant absorption and reflection modes were observed while varying the wire and nano-slit widths to study the unique optical modes generated by Rayleigh-Wood anomalies and surface plasmon polaritons. We observed sharp and diffuse changes in optical response to these anomalies, which may potentially be useful in applications such as photo-sensing and photodetectors. Additionally, we found that varying the slit width produced sharper, more intense anomalies in the optical spectrum than varying the wire width.

Fabry-Perot cavity resonance enabling highly polarization-sensitive double-layer gold grating

We present experimental and theoretical investigations on the polarization properties of a single- and a double-layer gold (Au) grating, serving as a wire grid polarizer. Two layers of Au gratings form a cavity that effectively modulates the transmission and reflection of linearly polarized light. Theoretical calculations based on a transfer matrix method reveals that the double-layer Au grating structure creates an optical cavity exhibiting Fabry-Perot (FP) resonance modes. As compared to a single-layer grating, the FP cavity resonance modes of the double-layer grating significantly enhance the transmission of the transverse magnetic (TM) mode, while suppressing the transmission of the transverse electric (TE) mode. As a result, the extinction ratio of TM to TE transmission for the double-layer grating structure is improved by a factor of approximately 8 in the mid-wave infrared region of 3.4–6 μm. Furthermore, excellent infrared imagery is obtained with over a 600% increase in the ratio of the TM-output voltage (V_θ = 0°) to TE-output voltage (V_{θ = 90°}). This double-layer Au grating structure has great potential for use in polarimetric imaging applications due to its superior ability to resolve linear polarization signatures.

Plasmonic Au Array SERS Substrate with Optimized Thin Film Oxide Substrate Layer

This work studies the effect of a plasmonic array structure coupled with thin film oxide substrate layers on optical surface enhancement using a finite element method. Previous results have shown that as the nanowire spacing increases in the sub-100 nm range, enhancement decreases; however, this work improves upon previous results by extending the range above 100 nm. It also averages optical enhancement across the entire device surface rather than localized regions, which gives a more practical estimate of the sensor response. A significant finding is that in higher ranges, optical enhancement does not always decrease but instead has additional plasmonic modes at greater nanowire and spacing dimensions resonant with the period of the structure and the incident light wavelength, making it possible to optimize enhancement in more accessibly fabricated nanowire array structures. This work also studies surface enhancement to optimize the geometries of plasmonic wires and oxide substrate thickness. Periodic oscillations of surface enhancement are observed at specific oxide thicknesses. These results will help improve future research by providing optimized geometries for SERS molecular sensors.