title: Electro-optical switching by liquid-crystal controlled metasurfaces.
abstract: We study the optical response of a metamaterial surface created by a lattice of split-ring resonators covered with a nematic liquid crystal and demonstrate millisecond timescale switching between electric and magnetic resonances of the metasurface. This is achieved due to a high sensitivity of liquid-crystal molecular reorientation to the symmetry of the metasurface as well as to the presence of a bias electric field. Our experiments are complemented by numerical simulations of the liquid-crystal reorientation.
authors.affiliation: Nonlinear Physics Centre and Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), Research School of Physics and Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. manuel.decker@anu.edu.au
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Decker
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kremers
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Minovich
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Staude
authors.forename: Andrey E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Miroshnichenko
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chigrin
authors.forename: Dragomir N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Neshev
authors.forename: Chennupati
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jagadish
authors.forename: Yuri S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Kivshar
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008027:Light; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D008420:Manufactured Materials; D008956:Models, Chemical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D008968:Molecular Conformation / Q000528:radiation effects; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*