Exciting broadband thermochromic transmission property opposite to vanadium dioxide in the atmospheric window

The traditional telecommunications band performs poorly in harsh weather conditions due to atmospheric absorption. In recent years, researchers have begun to study optical communication through atmospheric windows, and optical switches are an essential component of optical communication. A broadband atmospheric window optical switch was proposed based on Vanadium dioxide and magnetic polaritons (MP). It is formed by the stacking of two metal-dielectric-metal structures. The simulation results show that the modulation depth can reach 98.38%, and the extinction ratio is 17.93 dB. By calculating the magnetic field, we confirmed that the reason for the “off” mode is the coupling between the different MP modes, while the “on” mode is the excitation of MP. The optical switch we proposed may be applied to radiation cooling and optical satellite communication.