Abstract Active control of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in metamaterials promises tremendous potential applications. However, previously reported strategies most require sensitive materials as well as additional experimental apparatus, which are inconvenient for on-chip operation and restrain their implementations in fully integrated design. We propose a low-loss all-dielectric metamaterial with orthogonal double bright modes, which shows a narrowband transparency window at 950.05 nm with a high Q -factor of 2111. Just by varying the incident light polarization angle, an on-to-off in-situ EIT modulation without changing Q -factor is perfectly achieved, and the modulation depth can be up to 99.7%. Additionally, optical control of group delay with up to 36.22 ps is also demonstrated. This work provides a simple route to design chip-scale devices with optically dynamic controllability and finds fascinating applications in low-loss active slow light devices, optical switch and sensitive bio-sensing.
Abstract Active control of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in metamaterials promises tremendous potential applications. However, previously reported strategies most require sensitive materials as well as additional experimental apparatus, which are inconvenient for on-chip operation and restrain their implementations in fully integrated design. We propose a low-loss all-dielectric metamaterial with orthogonal double bright modes, which shows a narrowband transparency window at 950.05 nm with a high Q -factor of 2111. Just by varying the incident light polarization angle, an on-to-off in-situ EIT modulation without changing Q -factor is perfectly achieved, and the modulation depth can be up to 99.7%. Additionally, optical control of group delay with up to 36.22 ps is also demonstrated. This work provides a simple route to design chip-scale devices with optically dynamic controllability and finds fascinating applications in low-loss active slow light devices, optical switch and sensitive bio-sensing.
We investigate numerically an analog of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in an all-dielectric metamaterial-waveguide (ADMW) that consists of a two-dimensional silicon rod array on quartz slab waveguide. The EIT-like response is achieved by the destructive interference between a broad magnetic resonance and a narrow guide mode resonance. By tailoring the guided mode through the thickness of the slab waveguide or the lattice period of the metamaterial, an EIT-like transmission window is achieved with both high Q-factor (>104) and high transmission (>94%). And the group refractive index at the EIT-like resonance of the ADMW can be up to several thousands. These results demonstrate that the proposed ADMW has potential applications in low-loss slow-light based devices, bio-chemical sensing, and optical modulations.
We theoretically investigate dynamical control of light slowing within the induced transparent window, e.g., in near-infrared frequencies, in electromagnetically induced transparent (EIT) metamaterials loaded by low-lossy graphene. Coupling with graphene enables distinctive optical responses of the "bright" and "dark" resonators in EIT metamaterials, rendering a switching of the transparent window and a modulation on light dispersion. Optical performance of the transparent window manifests continuous tuning as the graphene doping level changes. We show that the active modulation on optical properties of the transparent window enabled by low-lossy graphene is distinctive either by passively adjusting the interspacing between the building blocks of EIT metamaterials, or active tuning by high-lossy graphene. Furthermore, we report that the group refractive index can be in situ tuned dynamically over a broad range, e.g., ∼2 orders for near-infrared frequencies, together with absorption maintained at a level similar to that of the unloaded structure. Our study offers new possibilities towards chip-scale devices, such as active optical switching, filtering, and data storing.
We investigated numerically the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) behavior with the maximum Q factor is up to 28000 in a metal-dielectric metamaterial. It composed of two layers, a metallic strip as bright mode stacked above a dielectric rod as another bright mode. The coherent coupling between the broad electric dipole induced by the metal strip and the narrow toroidal dipole induced by the dielectric rod leads to the destructive interference, then introduces a transparency window. Interestingly, the EIT window could be effectively influenced by varying parameters of the two layers and the thickness of middle spacer. This process can be explained by using two-particle model. Furthermore, the radiation loss is greatly suppressed within the EIT windows and the slow light effect is improved a lot. These excellent properties also provide an effective platform for the filters and sensitive chemical and biological sensors in the optical range.
Abstract Based on graphene, an ultra-broadband electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) window with dynamic tunability is realized in theory. Through altering the Fermi level of graphene that can be regulated by the external voltage, the EIT window and the EIT effect, especially the slow-wave effect, can be easily adjusted. Moreover, the bandwidth of the EIT window can be changed by the incidence angle, achieving the transformation from broadband to narrowband. At the same time, by discussing the polarization state and loss index, the characteristics of polarization insensitivity and low loss are proved. Additionally, the influences of other parameters are discussed, such as the relaxation time of graphene and coupling distance. These unique features enable the designed EIT metamaterial to be masterly applied to optical switches, optical modulators, and slow-light devices.
An analogy of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) based on all-dielectric metamaterial is theoretically demonstrated in this paper. The U-shaped Silicon-based metamaterial unit cell comprises a dipole antenna supported by one horizontal nanoscale bar and a quadrupolar antenna supported by two vertical nanoscale bars. The near-field coupling between the two antennas and the reduction of absorption loss lead to a narrow EIT-like transmission window with a high quality-factor of 130, which exhibits a refractive index sensitivity with a figure-of-merit of 29. The group delay of 0.75 ps and the group index of 2035 are obtained in the transmission window. Due to these unique optical properties, the proposed metamaterial structure can find many applications including slow-light devices, optical sensors, enhancement of non-linear processes, and storage of quantum information.
The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which is a result of destructive interference between different excitation paths in a three-energy-level atomic medium, makes opaque probe light transparent over a range of frequencies. As this EIT effect is usually accompanied with strong dispersion, it has potential applications such as slow light propagation, optical buffering, nonlinear optics, optical sensing, etc. However, for conventional quantum EIT effect which requires stable gas lasers and low temperature environment, the implementation of EIT in chip-scale applications is severely hampered by the scathing experimental requirements. Recently, the EIT-like effect in metamaterials, which are constructed by designing the artificial subwavelength functional elements and arranging the spatial sequences, attracts tremendous attention because of its advantages, such as room temperature manipulability, large bandwidth, and small sizes. In addition, the high-quality factor(Q) value obtained by EIT-like effect has great significance in designing the metamaterial-based devices. In this paper, we design an EIT-like metamaterial with such a structure. The unit cell of the proposed metamaterial is constructed by two asymmetric silicon blocks embedded on a silicon dioxide substrate. Meanwhile, we analyze its optical properties and EIT-like effects by using three-dimension (3D) FDTD method. Based on the coupled Lorentz model, the EIT-like effect of the designed metamaterial is investigated. Then, by employing the electric field distribution on the surface of the metamaterial, and combining with the three-level atomic system, the mechanism of the EIT-like effect is analyzed in detail. We find that the EIT-like effect in the proposed metamaterial has high Q value (Q ≈ 8616) and the high transmission (T = 96%). By changing the length of the silicon block to destroy the asymmetry of the metamaterial structure, an active tuning EIT-like effect is realized. Furthermore, the metamaterial structure has the advantages of low loss, easy preparation, and active-controllability. This study represents an innovative approach to designing the EIT-like metamaterial, which is expected to be useful for designing active tunable slow-light devices and highly sensitive optical sensors.