Temporal Analysis of Photo‐Thermally Induced Reconfigurability in a 1D Gold Grating Filled with a Phase Change Material

Abstract

In this study, the finite‐element method is used to numerically calculate a photo‐thermally induced reconfigurability in a 1D gold grating structure filled with the phase change material Ge2Sb2Se4Te1 (GSST). GSST features a reversible and stable phase change between amorphous and crystalline phases around a critical temperature of 410 K with broadband low optical loss. In this study, the required heating for the transition between phases is provided by a nanosecond Gaussian pulse laser through a photo‐thermal absorption process. A comprehensive heat transfer analysis is performed to investigate the thermal characterizations of the proposed structure. The results show that in the amorphous state, the structure has a near unity absorption band in the infrared region. As the temperature increases during the pulse, the GSST undergoes the amorphous to crystalline phase change. In the intermediate states (partial crystallization) of the GSST two resonance peaks are excited and the absorption finally reaches its minimum value of 0.2 in the GSST crystalline phase. The findings of this study not only provide the fundamental concepts for the suggested tunable structure, but also have potential applications in a variety of nanophotonic devices including thermal emission controllers, sensors, and optical detection devices.

Band-stop filter based on metal–insulator-metal hybridized with graphene layer in telecommunication regime

“…Hence active tunable materials play an important role in nanophotonics as they open new area of application. Graphene [17], liquid crystals [14] and phase change materials [18], are active tunable substances which have the ability to combine with metamaterial and play an important role in tunability of nanostructures.…”