Vanadium oxide metal-insulator phase transition in different types of one-dimensional photonic microcavities

Abstract

The optical properties of vanadium dioxide ($VO_2$) can be tuned via metal-insulator transition. In this work different types of one-dimensional photonic structure-based microcavities that embed vanadium dioxide have been studied in the spectral range between 900 nm and 2000 nm. In particular, $VO_2$ has been sandwiched between: i) two photonic crystals made of $SiO_2$ and $ZrO_2$; ii) two aperiodic structures made of $SiO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ that follow the Thue-Morse sequence; iii) two disordered photonic structures, made of $SiO_2$ and $ZrO_2$ in which the disorder is introduced either by a random sequence of the two materials or by a random variation of the thicknesses of the layers; iv) two four material-based photonic crystals made of $SiO_2$, $Al_2O_3$, $Y_2O_3$, and $ZrO_2$. The ordered structures i and iv show, respectively, one and two intense transmission valleys with defect modes, while the aperiodic and disordered structures ii and iii show a manifold of transmission valleys due to their complex layered configurations. The metal-insulator transition of $VO_2$, controlled by temperature, results in a modulation of the optical properties of the microcavities.