Voltage-gated optics and plasmonics enabled by solid-state proton pumping
Devices with locally-addressable and dynamically tunable optical properties underpin emerging technologies such as high-resolution reflective displays and dynamic holography. The optical properties of metals such as Y and Mg can be reversibly switched by hydrogen loading, and hydrogen-switched mirro...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC,
2020-04-13T17:50:20Z.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get fulltext |
| Summary: | Devices with locally-addressable and dynamically tunable optical properties underpin emerging technologies such as high-resolution reflective displays and dynamic holography. The optical properties of metals such as Y and Mg can be reversibly switched by hydrogen loading, and hydrogen-switched mirrors and plasmonic devices have been realized, but challenges remain to achieve electrical, localized and reversible control. Here we report a nanoscale solid-state proton switch that allows for electrical control of optical properties through electrochemical hydrogen gating. We demonstrate the generality and versatility of this approach by realizing tunability of a range of device characteristics including transmittance, interference color, and plasmonic resonance. We further discover and exploit a giant modulation of the effective refractive index of the gate dielectric. The simple gate structure permits device thickness down to ~20 nanometers, which can enable device scaling into the deep subwavelength regime, and has potential applications in addressable plasmonic devices and reconfigurable metamaterials. National Science Foundation (U.S.). Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (Program) (Award DMR-1419807) United States. Department of Energy (Contract DE-SC0012704) |
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