Engineering the phase front of light with phase-change material based planar lenses

Abstract

A novel hybrid planar lens is proposed to engineer the far-field focusing patterns. It consists of an array of slits which are filled with phase-change material Ge2 Sb2 Te5 (GST). By varying the crystallization level of GST from 0% to 90%, the Fabry-Pérot resonance supported inside each slit can be spectrally shifted across the working wavelength at 1.55 ?m, which results in a transmitted electromagnetic phase modulation as large as 0.56?. Based on this geometrically fixed platform, different phase fronts can be constructed spatially on the lens plane by assigning the designed GST crystallization levels to the corresponding slits, achieving various far-field focusing patterns. The present work offers a promising route to realize tunable nanophotonic components, which can be used in optical circuits and imaging applications. © 2015, Nature Publishing Group. All rights reserved.