Phase Modulation with Electrically Tunable Vanadium Dioxide Phase-Change Metasurfaces

Abstract

We report a dynamically tunable reflectarray metasurface that continuously modulates the phase of reflected light in the near-infrared wavelength range under active electrical control of the phase transition from semiconducting to semimetallic states. We integrate a vanadium dioxide (VO_2) active layer into the dielectric gap of antenna elements in a reflectarray metasurface, which undergoes an insulator-to-metal transition upon resistive heating of the metallic patch antenna. The induced phase transition in the VO_2 film strongly perturbs the magnetic dipole resonance supported by the metasurface. By carefully controlling the volume fractions of coexisting metallic and dielectric regions of the VO_2 film, we observe a continuous shift of the phase of the reflected light, with a maximal achievable phase shift as high as 250°. We also observe a reflectance modulation of 23.5% as well as a spectral shift of the resonance position by 175 nm. The metasurface phase modulation is fairly broadband, yielding large phase shifts at multiple operation wavelengths.