Nanoelectromechanical systems-enabled tunable metamaterials

This paper reports on a nanoelectromechanical systems-based tunable IR metamaterial realized by embedding nanocantilevers into complementary split ring resonator structures suspended over individual wells. The optical field confined in the air gap of c-SRR is strongly modulated by electromechanical deflection of the nanocantilever, thus modulating the reflection spectrum of the metamaterial. With the easy-to-implement tunable meta-atom design, the NEMS-enabled metamaterial provides an ultrahigh mechanical modulation frequency of 32.26 MHz and 38% optical signal modulation at a wavelength of 2.1 μm. We envision a compact, efficient, and high-speed electro-optic modulation platform in the IR region using this tunable metamaterial technology.