Thermo-optically Reconfigurable PbTe Mie Resonator Meta-atoms

Abstract

Subwavelength Mie resonators have enabled new classes of optical antennas1-4, photodetectors5,6, antireflection coatings7, and magnetic mirrors8 and can act as the basic meta-atoms constituents of low-loss dielectric metasurfaces2-4,8-10. In any application, tunable Mie resonances are key to achieving dynamic and reconfigurable operation11,12. Sub-linewidth tuning has been achieved via coupling to liquid crystals13, ultrafast free-carrier injection14,15,16,17, stretchable substrates18 and with phase change materials19. Here, we demonstrate ultra-wide dynamic tuning of PbTe Mie resonators fabricated via both laser ablation and a novel solution-processing approach. Taking advantage of the extremely large thermo-optic (TO) coefficient and high refractive index of PbTe, we demonstrate high-quality factor Mie-resonances that are tuned by several linewidths with temperature modulation as small as ΔT~10K. When combined into metasurface arrays these effects can be exploited in ultra-narrow active notch filers and metasurface phase shifters that require only few-kelvin modulation. These findings demonstrate the enabling potential of thermo-optically tunable PbTe meta-atoms and metasurfaces.