Optomechanical metasurfaces
We exploit enhanced light-matter interaction in meta-atoms to design novel mechanically reconfigurable metasurfaces.
Motivation
A metasurface is an artificial sheet with subwavelength thickness, which is structured in the plane with subwavelength patterns (known as meta-atoms) to control transmitted light. In particular, metasurfaces can be designed to integrate on achip optical functionalities normally provided by bulky optical elements, including focusing and complex polarization and phase control. To date, extensive efforts are directed towards reconfigurability, i.e. modifying the optical response of a metasurface with an external control signal.
Among the different physical mechanisms considered to achieve reconfigurability, we here focus on opto-mechanical control. We design suspended metasurfaces, where each meta-atom acts as an independent optomechanical nano-resonator. Using enhanced optical forces, we aim at controlling the mechanical deformation of the meta-atoms which will eventually induce a change of the transmitted light.
Research focus
- Studying of enhanced optical forces experienced by resonant meta-atoms
- Exploring applications of optomechanical metasurfaces to reconfigurable planar optics