Alloys of sulphur, selenium and tellurium, often referred to as chalcogenide semiconductors offer a highly versatile, compositionally-controllable material platform for reconfigurable metamaterial applications. They present various high- and low-index dielectric, low-epsilon and plasmonic properties across ultra-violet (UV), visible and infrared frequencies, in addition to an ultra-fast, non-volatile, electrically-/optically-induced switching capability between phase states with markedly different electromagnetic properties. We show that by integrating chalcogenide metasurfaces on the tip and side of optical fibers as well as silicon photonic waveguide platforms a range of wavelength-tunable modulators for telecommunication networks and synaptic weights for emerging neuromorphic computing applications can be realized.
|