Fast tunable metamaterial liquid crystal achromatic waveplate

Majd Abu Aisheh, Mohammad Abutoama, Marwan J. Abuleil, Ibrahim Abdulhalim

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    12 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Photonic metamaterials combined with liquid crystals (LCs) for tunability is a great niche for building miniature devices with high performance such as fast flat tunable lenses, tunable filters, and waveplates. Sub-wavelength or nano-grating surfaces are homogenized to uniaxial waveplates with negative birefringence of unique dispersion when the period is less than the wavelength by at least a few times. This uniaxial metasurface, combined with the LC layer, is shown to act as a tunable retardation achromatic waveplate with 8 μm thick LC layer operating over wide spectral and angular ranges, as compared to using two nematic liquid crystal (NLC) retarders of thicknesses on the order of 30-60 μm, when no metasurface is used. Hence the device becomes miniature and 50× faster due to the thinner liquid crystal layer. The silicon nano-grating of 351 nm pitch and 0.282 fill factor is designed and fabricated to operate in the short-wave infrared range (SWIR). Switching between three achromatic retardation levels: full-, half-, and quarter-waveplates is accomplished by changing the applied voltages on the NLC cell with a switching time of a few milliseconds. This device has applications in fast broadband shutters, low coherence phase shift interferometry, ellipso-polarimetry, dynamic control of light intensity, and smart windows.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)1115-1127
    Number of pages13
    JournalNanophotonics
    Volume12
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2 Mar 2023

    Keywords

    • liquid crystals
    • metamaterials
    • nanograting
    • tunable achromatic waveplates

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Biotechnology
    • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
    • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
    • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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