Reconfigurable photonic metamaterials drive by Coulomb, Lorentz and optical forces

Metamaterials offer a huge range of enhanced and novel functionalities that natural materials cannot provide. They promise applications in superresolution imaging, optical data storage, optical filters, polarization control, cloaking, fraud prevention and many more. However, their unique optical properties are often narrowband and usually fixed. Here we demonstrate how the mechanical rearrangement of metamaterial structures at the nanoscale provides a powerful platform for controlling metamaterial properties dynamically. Using thermal, electrical, magnetic and optical control signals we demonstrate large-range tuning, high-contrast switching and modulation of metamaterial optical properties at megahertz frequencies and beyond. Beyond the obvious benefit of adding tunability to known metamaterial functionalities, this unlocks many new opportunities in areas such as light modulation and highly nonlinear & bistable optical device

Nano-electromechanical switchable photonic metamaterials

We introduce mechanically reconfigurable electrostatically-driven photonic metamaterials (RPMs) as a generic platform for large-range tuning and switching of photonic metamaterial properties. Here we illustrate this concept with a high-contrast metamaterial electro-optic switch exhibiting relative reflection changes of up to 72% in the optical part of the spectrum

Coherent control of birefringence and optical activity

Control of polarization of light with light is demonstrated in thin slabs of linear material promising ultrafast all-optical data processing at arbitrarily low intensities. In proof-of-principle experiments we access any polarization azimuth and any ellipticity

Controlling light with light in a plasmonic nanooptomechanical metamaterial

We demonstrate metamaterial with a cubic optical nonlinearity that is ten orders of magnitude greater than the reference nonlinearity of CS2. The nonlinearity has optomechanical nature and is underpinned by light-induced electromagnetic near-field interactions

Lorentz force metamaterial with giant optical magnetoelectric response

We demonstrate the first reconfigurable photonic metamaterial controlled by electrical currents and magnetic fields, providing first practically useful solutions for sub-megahertz and high contrast modulation of metamaterial optical properties

Two-Stream Instability Model With Electrons Trapped in Quadrupoles

We formulate the theory of the two-stream instability (e-cloud instability) with electrons trapped in quadrupole magnets. We show that a linear instability theory can be sensibly formulated and analyzed. The growth rates are considerably smaller than the linear growth rates for the two-stream instability in drift spaces and are close to those actually observed

Controlling light with light in nano-opto-mechanical metamaterial

We demonstrate nano-opto-mechanical metamaterial with a cubic optical nonlinearity that is seven orders of magnitude greater than the reference nonlinearity of GaAs. The nonlinearity is driven by light-induced deformation of the plasmonic nanostructure

Nano-opto-mechanical nonlinear plasmonic metamaterials

We demonstrate megahertz-bandwidth modulation of light with light at the milliwatt power level with nanooptomechanical metamaterials fabricated on a nanoscale elastic silicon nitride membrane. The origin of nonlinearity is in the light-induced electromagnetic near-field forces