- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Mid-infrared optical valve based on VO2

Antonio García-Martín* and Raquel Álvaro

Zhuoqun Fang, Alexandre Zimmers, Zhuoying Chen, and Lionel Aigouy

  • *Contact author: a.garcia.martin@csic.es
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 7, 023301 – Published 24 June, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/lyrm-djr7

Abstract

We demonstrate an efficient optical binary-switch effect in nanoslit arrays achieved via the temperature-induced phase transition of VO2. Experimental measurements reveal a polarization-dependent 60% reduction in reflectivity during the insulator-to-metal transition. Tuning a single parameter of the slit enables control over the “optical-valve” effect. Full numerical simulations support these findings, predicting a reflectivity reduction up to 90%. The nearly one-to-null transition in reflectivity mimics the operation of a digital switch, with the high-reflectivity and the low-reflectivity states providing a binary response much like digital electronics.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (31)

  1. N. Meinzer, W. L. Barnes, and I. R. Hooper, Plasmonic meta-atoms and metasurfaces, Nat. Photon. 8, 889 (2014).
  2. A. Ali, A. Mitra, and B. Aïssa, Metamaterials and metasurfaces: A review from the perspectives of materials, mechanisms and advanced metadevices, Nanomaterials 12, 1027 (2022).
  3. N. I. Zheludev and Y. S. Kivshar, From metamaterials to metadevices, Nat. Mater. 11, 917 (2012).
  4. J. Y. Ou, E. Plum, L. Jiang, and N. I. Zheludev, Reconfigurable photonic metamaterials, Nano Lett. 11, 2142 (2011).
  5. B. C. L. de Larrinzar, C. Xiang, E. R. C. de Oliveira, N. D. Lanzillotti-Kimura, and A. García-Martín, Towards chiral acoustoplasmonics, Nanophotonics 12, 1957 (2023).
  6. J. Yang, S. Gurung, S. Bej, P. Ni, and H. W. Howard Lee, Active optical metasurfaces: Comprehensive review on physics, mechanisms, and prospective applications, Rep. Prog. Phys. 85, 036101 (2022).
  7. B. C. L. de Larrinzar, J. M. Garcia, C. Xiang, N. D. Lanzillotti-Kimura, and A. Garcia-Martin, Coupled acoustoplasmonic resonators: The role of geometrical symmetries, Nanophotonics 14, 75 (2025).
  8. M. I. Marques, S. Edelstein, P. A. Serena, B. C. L. de Larrinzar, and A. Garcia-Martin, Magneto-optical particles in isotropic spinning fields mimic magnetic monopoles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 046901 (2024).
  9. Y. Feng, Q. Hu, K. Qu, W. Yang, Y. Zheng, and K. Chen, Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces: Design, implementation, and practical demonstration, Electromagn. Sci. 1, 1 (2023).
  10. S. Cueff, J. John, Z. Zhang, J. Parra, J. Sun, R. Orobtchouk, S. Ramanathan, and P. Sanchis, VO2 nanophotonics, APL Photonics 5, 110901 (2020).
  11. B. Gholipour, J. Zhang, K. F. MacDonald, D. W. Hewak, and N. I. Zheludev, An all-optical, non-volatile, bidirectional, phase-change meta-switch, Adv. Mater. 25, 3050 (2013).
  12. L. Lei, F. Lou, K. Tao, H. Huang, X. Cheng, and P. Xu, Tunable and scalable broadband metamaterial absorber involving VO2-based phase transition, Photon. Res. 7, 734 (2019).
  13. W.-x. Huang, X.-g. Yin, C.-p. Huang, Q.-j. Wang, T.-f. Miao, and Y.-y. Zhu, Optical switching of a metamaterial by temperature controlling, Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 261908 (2010).
  14. M. Seo, J. Kyoung, H. Park, S. Koo, H.-s. Kim, H. Bernien, B. J. Kim, J. H. Choe, Y. H. Ahn, H.-T. Kim, N. Park, Q.-H. Park, K. Ahn, and D.-s. Kim, Active terahertz nanoantennas based on VO2 phase transition, Nano Lett. 10, 2064 (2010).
  15. J. King, C. Wan, T. J. Park, S. Deshpande, Z. Zhang, S. Ramanathan, and M. A. Kats, Electrically tunable VO2–metal metasurface for mid-infrared switching, limiting and nonlinear isolation, Nat. Photon. 18, 74 (2024).
  16. A.-K. U. Michel, D. N. Chigrin, T. W. W. Maß, K. Schönauer, M. Salinga, M. Wuttig, and T. Taubner, Using low-loss phase-change materials for mid-infrared antenna resonance tuning, Nano Lett. 13, 3470 (2013).
  17. T. Kang, B. Fan, J. Qin, W. Yang, S. Xia, Z. Peng, B. Liu, S. Peng, X. Liang, T. Tang, L. Deng, Y. Luo, H. Wang, Q. Zhou, and L. Bi, Mid-infrared active metasurface based on Si/VO2 hybrid meta-atoms, Photon. Res. 10, 373 (2022).
  18. F. Ding, C. Meng, and S. I. Bozhevolnyi, Electrically tunable optical metasurfaces, Photon. Insights 3, R07 (2024).
  19. Y. Che, X. Wang, Q. Song, Y. Zhu, and S. Xiao, Tunable optical metasurfaces enabled by multiple modulation mechanisms, Nanophotonics 9, 4407 (2020).
  20. L. Zhao, L. Miao, S. Tanemura, J. Zhou, L. Chen, X. Xiao, and G. Xu, A low cost preparation of VO2 thin films with improved thermochromic properties from a solution-based process, Thin Solid Films 543, 157 (2013).
  21. G. Pan, J. Yin, K. Ji, X. Li, X. Cheng, H. Jin, and J. Liu, Synthesis and thermochromic property studies on W doped VO2 films fabricated by sol-gel method, Sci. Rep. 7, 6132 (2017).
  22. Z. Fang, A. Zimmers, Z. Chen, L. Billot, A. García-Martín, and L. Aigouy, Plasmon-enhanced photothermal sensing through coupled VO2/Au nanodisks, Surf. Interfaces 62, 106145 (2025).
  23. G. Armelles, A. Cebollada, D. G. Cava, J. Alvarez-Malmagro, and M. Vélez, Surface enhanced infrared characterization using disordered slit-antenna arrays for the detection of electrodeposited cytochrome C, Plasmonics 17, 321 (2022).
  24. F. J. García de Abajo, R. Gómez-Medina, and J. J. Sáenz, Full transmission through perfect-conductor subwavelength hole arrays, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016608 (2005).
  25. G. Armelles, B. Caballero, A. Cebollada, A. Garcia-Martin, and D. Meneses-Rodríguez, Magnetic field modification of optical magnetic dipoles, Nano Lett. 15, 2045 (2015).
  26. I. L. Rasskazov, N. Sonwalkar, and P. Scott Carney, Light scattering by plasmonic disks and holes arrays: Different or the same? J. Phys. D 55, 455104 (2022).
  27. Z. J. Thompson, A. Stickel, Y.-G. Jeong, S. Han, B. H. Son, M. J. Paul, B. Lee, A. Mousavian, G. Seo, H.-T. Kim, Y.-S. Lee, and D.-S. Kim, Terahertz-triggered phase transition and hysteresis narrowing in a nanoantenna patterned vanadium dioxide film, Nano Lett. 15, 5893 (2015).
  28. A. Tripathi, J. John, S. Kruk, Z. Zhang, H. S. Nguyen, L. Berguiga, P. R. Romeo, R. Orobtchouk, S. Ramanathan, Y. Kivshar, and S. Cueff, Tunable Mie-resonant dielectric metasurfaces based on VO2 phase-transition materials, ACS Photonics 8, 1206 (2021).
  29. A. M. Boyce, J. W. Stewart, J. Avila, Q. Shen, S. Zhang, V. D. Wheeler, and M. H. Mikkelsen, Actively tunable metasurfaces via plasmonic nanogap cavities with sub-10-nm VO2 films, Nano Lett. 22, 3525 (2022).
  30. J. Kyoung, Direct in situ observation of the percolation transition in VO2 thin film by peak-shift spectroscopy, Opt. Mater. Express 12, 1065 (2022).
  31. I. O. Oguntoye, S. Padmanabha, M. Hinkle, T. Koutsougeras, A. J. Ollanik, and M. D. Escarra, Continuously tunable optical modulation using vanadium dioxide huygens metasurfaces, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 15, 41141 (2023).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 7, 023301– Published 24 June, 2025
  • Received 16 April 2025
  • Accepted 29 May 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation