An electro-tunable Fabry–Perot interferometer based on dual mirror-on-mirror nanoplasmonic metamaterials
Author(s)
Sikdar, Debabrata
Kornyshev, Alexei
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Mirror-on-mirror nanoplasmonic metamaterials, formed based on voltage-controlled reversible selfassembly of sub-wavelength-sized, metallic nanoparticles (NPs) on thin metallic-film electrodes, are promising
candidates for novel electro-tunable optical devices. Here, we present a new design of electro-tunable Fabry–Perot
interferometers (FPI), in which two parallel mirrors — each composed of a monolayer of NPs self-assembled on a
thin metallic electrode — form an optical cavity, which is filled with aqueous solution. The reflectivity of the cavitymirrors can be electrically adjusted, simultaneously or separately, via a small variation of electrode potentials that
would alter the inter-NP separation in the monolayers. To investigate optical transmittance from the proposed FPI
device we develop a nine-layer-stack theoretical model, based on our effective medium theory and multi-layer Fresnel
reflection scheme, which produces excellent match when verified against full-wave simulations. We show that strong
plasmonic coupling among silver NPs forming monolayer on a thin silver-film substrate makes reflectivity of each
cavity-mirror highly sensitive to the inter-NP separation. Such a design allows continuous tuning of the multiple,
narrow and intense transmission peaks emerging from an FPI cavity via electrotuning the inter-NP separation in-situ
— reaping the benefits from both inexpensive bottom-up fabrication and energy efficiency of tuning.
candidates for novel electro-tunable optical devices. Here, we present a new design of electro-tunable Fabry–Perot
interferometers (FPI), in which two parallel mirrors — each composed of a monolayer of NPs self-assembled on a
thin metallic electrode — form an optical cavity, which is filled with aqueous solution. The reflectivity of the cavitymirrors can be electrically adjusted, simultaneously or separately, via a small variation of electrode potentials that
would alter the inter-NP separation in the monolayers. To investigate optical transmittance from the proposed FPI
device we develop a nine-layer-stack theoretical model, based on our effective medium theory and multi-layer Fresnel
reflection scheme, which produces excellent match when verified against full-wave simulations. We show that strong
plasmonic coupling among silver NPs forming monolayer on a thin silver-film substrate makes reflectivity of each
cavity-mirror highly sensitive to the inter-NP separation. Such a design allows continuous tuning of the multiple,
narrow and intense transmission peaks emerging from an FPI cavity via electrotuning the inter-NP separation in-situ
— reaping the benefits from both inexpensive bottom-up fabrication and energy efficiency of tuning.
Date Issued
2019-12
Date Acceptance
2019-10-01
Citation
Nanophotonics, 2019, 8 (12), pp.2279-2290
ISSN
2192-8606
Publisher
De Gruyter Open
Start Page
2279
End Page
2290
Journal / Book Title
Nanophotonics
Volume
8
Issue
12
Copyright Statement
©2019 Debabrata Sikdar et al., published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Commission of the European Communities
Grant Number
EP/L02098X/1
751763
Subjects
0205 Optical Physics
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
1007 Nanotechnology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2019-11-08