Thermal tuning of mid-infrared plasmonic antenna arrays using a phase change material

We demonstrate that the resonances of infrared plasmonic antennas can be tuned or switched on/off by taking advantage of the thermally driven insulator-to-metal phase transition in vanadium dioxide (VO2). Y-shaped antennas were fabricated on a 180 nm film of VO2 deposited on a sapphire substrate, and their resonances were shown to depend on the temperature of the VO2 film in proximity of its phase transition, in good agreement with full-wave simulations. We achieved tunability of the resonance wavelength of approximately 10% (> 1 mu m at lambda similar to 10 mu m). (C) 2013 Optical Society of America