Continuously Tunable Optical Modulation Using Vanadium Dioxide Huygens Metasurfaces.

Efficient and dynamic light manipulation at small scale is highly desirable for many photonics applications. Active optical metasurfaces represent a useful way of achieving this due to their creative design potential, compact footprint, and low power consumption, paving the way toward the realization of chip-scale photonic devices with tunable optical functionality on demand. Here, we demonstrate a dynamically tunable, dual-function metasurface based on dielectric resonances in vanadium dioxide that is capable of independent active amplitude and phase control without the use of mechanical parts.

Silicon Nanodisk Huygens Metasurfaces for Portable and Low-Cost Refractive Index and Biomarker Sensing.

Biomarker detection and bulk refractive index sensing are important across multiple industries ranging from early medical diagnosis to chemical process quality control. The bulky size, high cost, and complex architecture of existing refractive index and biomarker sensing technologies limit their use to highly skilled environments like hospitals, large food processing plants, and research labs. Here, we demonstrate a compact and inexpensive refractive index sensor based on resonant dielectric photonic nanoantenna arrays or metasurfaces.