Open AccessRealizing full visible spectrum metamaterial half-wave plates with patterned metal nanoarray/insulator/metal film structure
Author(s) -
Yanmeng Dai,
Wei Ren,
Haiwen Cai,
Hongyan Ding,
Nan Pan,
Xiaoping Wang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.22.007465
Subject(s) - materials science , optics , plasmon , metamaterial , broadband , optoelectronics , visible spectrum , physics
Abrupt phase shift introduced by plasmonic resonances has been frequently used to design subwavelength wave plates for optical integration. Here, with the sandwich structure consisting of a top periodic patterned silver nanopatch, an in-between insulator layer and a bottom thick Au film, we realize a broadband half-wave plate which is capable to cover entire visible light spectrum ranging from 400 to 780 nm. Moreover, when the top layer is replaced with a periodic array of composite super unit cell comprised of two nanopatches with different sizes, the operation bandwidth can be further improved to exceed an octave (400-830 nm). In particular, we demonstrate that the designed half-wave plate can be used efficiently to rotate the polarization state of an ultra-fast light pulse with reserved pulse width. Our result offers a new strategy to design and construct broadband high efficiency phase-response based optical components using patterned metal nanoarray/insulator/metal structure.