Picometer-Scale Spatial Symmetry Breaking in Active Transmissive Metasurfaces

Abstract

Active transmissive metasurfaces are central building blocks for future compact, cascadable optical systems, enabling the stacking of multiple functional layers for advanced dynamic beam shaping, photonic neural networks, depth sensing, and holography. We present a transmissive electro-optic metasurface based on silicon-on-lithium-niobate, where an array of silicon waveguides with periodic perturbations, individually controlled at the 100 pm scale, supports well-defined high-Q (>2000) guided-mode resonances (GMRs). We incorporate interdigitated push-pull electrodes between subwavelength-spaced GMR elements to locally tune the refractive index in the lithium niobate substrate, thereby shifting the GMR resonance and enabling opposite phase and amplitude modulation between neighboring radiative elements. In a geometrically symmetric metasurface, this effect introduces electro-optic beam splitting via diffraction, with diffraction efficiencies as high as 3%. By introducing controlled passive resonance detuning via 100 pm scale perturbation shifts, we realize a Vernier-type enhancement mechanism through geometrical symmetry breaking, thereby increasing the efficiency of amplitude modulation six-fold , and achieving modulation depths of 40% at $\pm$30 V. This work demonstrates the potential of active and passive resonance control enabled by high-Q GMR structures for efficient electro-optic modulation or multifunctional sensing.