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Phase-change-driven dielectric-plasmonic transitions in chalcogenide metasurfaces

Phase-change-driven dielectric-plasmonic transitions in chalcogenide metasurfaces
Phase-change-driven dielectric-plasmonic transitions in chalcogenide metasurfaces
Chalcogenides—alloys based on group-16 ‘chalcogen’ elements (sulfur, selenium, and tellurium) covalently bound to ‘network formers’ such as arsenic, germanium, antimony, and gallium—have a variety of technologically useful properties, including infrared transparency, high optical nonlinearity, photorefractivity and readily induced, reversible, non-volatile structural phase switching. Such phase-change materials are of enormous interest in the fields of plasmonics and nanophotonics. However, in such applications, the fact that some chalcogenides accrue plasmonic properties in the transition from an amorphous to a crystalline state, i.e., the real part of their relative permittivity becomes negative, has gone somewhat unnoticed. Indeed, one of the most commercially important chalcogenide compounds, germanium antimony telluride (Ge2:Sb2:Te5 or GST), which is widely used in rewritable optical and electronic data storage technologies, presents this behavior at wavelengths in the near-ultraviolet to visible spectral range. In this work, we show that the phase transition-induced emergence of plasmonic properties in the crystalline state can markedly change the optical properties of sub-wavelength-thickness, nanostructured GST films, allowing for the realization of non-volatile, reconfigurable (e.g., color-tunable) chalcogenide metasurfaces operating at visible frequencies and creating opportunities for developments in non-volatile optical memory, solid state displays and all-optical switching devices.
1884-4049
533-539
Gholipour, Behrad
c17bd62d-9df6-40e6-bc42-65272d97e559
Karvounis, Artemios
878c12bb-c30e-46f4-8c56-86423b41cdba
Yin, Jun
a4a0d155-c3d8-4a74-915a-cbbfe683b737
Soci, Cesare
6c86324e-2968-4e90-9436-4a92a4b26cec
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6
Gholipour, Behrad
c17bd62d-9df6-40e6-bc42-65272d97e559
Karvounis, Artemios
878c12bb-c30e-46f4-8c56-86423b41cdba
Yin, Jun
a4a0d155-c3d8-4a74-915a-cbbfe683b737
Soci, Cesare
6c86324e-2968-4e90-9436-4a92a4b26cec
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6

Gholipour, Behrad, Karvounis, Artemios, Yin, Jun, Soci, Cesare, MacDonald, Kevin F. and Zheludev, Nikolay I. (2018) Phase-change-driven dielectric-plasmonic transitions in chalcogenide metasurfaces. NPG Asia Materials, 10, 533-539. (doi:10.1038/s41427-018-0043-4).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Chalcogenides—alloys based on group-16 ‘chalcogen’ elements (sulfur, selenium, and tellurium) covalently bound to ‘network formers’ such as arsenic, germanium, antimony, and gallium—have a variety of technologically useful properties, including infrared transparency, high optical nonlinearity, photorefractivity and readily induced, reversible, non-volatile structural phase switching. Such phase-change materials are of enormous interest in the fields of plasmonics and nanophotonics. However, in such applications, the fact that some chalcogenides accrue plasmonic properties in the transition from an amorphous to a crystalline state, i.e., the real part of their relative permittivity becomes negative, has gone somewhat unnoticed. Indeed, one of the most commercially important chalcogenide compounds, germanium antimony telluride (Ge2:Sb2:Te5 or GST), which is widely used in rewritable optical and electronic data storage technologies, presents this behavior at wavelengths in the near-ultraviolet to visible spectral range. In this work, we show that the phase transition-induced emergence of plasmonic properties in the crystalline state can markedly change the optical properties of sub-wavelength-thickness, nanostructured GST films, allowing for the realization of non-volatile, reconfigurable (e.g., color-tunable) chalcogenide metasurfaces operating at visible frequencies and creating opportunities for developments in non-volatile optical memory, solid state displays and all-optical switching devices.

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GST plasmonics NAM accepted manuscript - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 5 March 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 11 June 2018
Published date: 11 June 2018

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 421435
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/421435
ISSN: 1884-4049
PURE UUID: d28a2aeb-7a3a-45ce-951d-f63e60670880
ORCID for Kevin F. MacDonald: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3877-2976
ORCID for Nikolay I. Zheludev: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-6636

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Date deposited: 11 Jun 2018 16:31
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:19

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Contributors

Author: Behrad Gholipour
Author: Artemios Karvounis
Author: Jun Yin
Author: Cesare Soci
Author: Kevin F. MacDonald ORCID iD
Author: Nikolay I. Zheludev ORCID iD

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