Switchable 3D Photonic Crystals Based on the Insulator-to-Metal Transition in VO.

Photonic crystals (PhCs) are optical structures characterized by the spatial modulation of the dielectric function, which results in the formation of a photonic band gap (PBG) in the frequency spectrum. This PBG blocks the propagation of light, enabling filtering, confinement, and manipulation of light. Most of the research in this field has concentrated on static PhCs, which have fixed structural and material parameters, leading to a constant PBG.