Design, fabrication, and spectral characterization of temperature-dependent liquid crystal-based metamaterial to tune dielectric metasurface resonances

Abstract: Tunable dielectric meta-surface nanostructures offer incredible performance in optical application due to their extraordinary tunability of the polarization and engineering the dispersion of light with low loss in infrared range. In this article, we designed and experimentally measured the tunability of all-dielectric subwavelength silicon nanoparticles with the help of the temperature-based refractive index of the liquid crystal in the telecom regime. The proposed structure composed of high dielectric nanodisk surrounded by nematic liquid crystal (NLC) is simulated with numerical software, assembled with pre-alignment material, and optically measured by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The simulated result is compatible with the practical measurements, shows that the tunability of 30nm is achieved. Electric and magnetic resonance modes of the high dielectric nanodisks are tailored in different rates by anisotropic temperature dependent NLC. The phase switching of anisotropic to isotropic nematic liquid crystal enables spectral tunning of the two modes of all dielectric metasurface and modifies the symmetry of the optical response of the metamaterial structure.