Science Daily June 7, 2022
Modulators based on metasurface architectures that modulate free-space light at gigahertz (GHz) speeds can boost flat optics technology by microwave electronics for active optics, diffractive computing, or optoelectronic control. An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, University of Washington, Switzerland) has demonstrated a modulator that consists of a thin layer of an organic electro-optic material deposited on top of a metasurface etched with sub-wavelength resonators integrated with microwave electronics. When a microwave field is applied to the electro-optical material, its refractive index changes, changing the intensity of light that is being transmitted by the metasurface in nanoseconds. With this design, they could modulate light 100 to 1,000 times faster than previously. This speed advance opens new possibilities in computing or communications and the tunability of the metasurface opens a vast application space for custom-tailored, ultracompact photonics that may in the future be deposited onto any nanoscale free-space optical product. In their future work they aim to modulate light even faster and by changing the design of the metasurface, modulate other aspects of light such as phase or polarization…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Ultrathin Mie-based free-space electro-optic modulators. Credit: Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1)Â