Rapidly tunable, narrow-band infrared filter arrays

US10393933B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC · US

Inventors

• Michael B. Sinclair · Albuquerque, US
• Salvatore Campione · Albuquerque, US
• David Bruce Burckel · Albuquerque, US
• Igal Brener · Albuquerque, US
• Paul J. Resnick · Albuquerque, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jun 15, 2017
• Grant date: Aug 27, 2019
• Expiry date: May 8, 2038

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H01S5/10
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

Tunable filters can use Fano metasurface designs having extremely narrow transmission bands. The Fano metasurface can comprise dielectric or semiconductor materials and can produce transmission bands with quality factors well in excess of 1000—at least a factor of 50 greater than typical metamaterial-based infrared resonances. Numerical simulations of these metasurfaces show that the spectral position of the passband can be changed by slightly changing the position of a small dielectric perturbation block placed within the near-field of the resonator by using simple electromechanical actuation architectures that allow for such motion. An array of independently tunable narrowband infrared filters can thereby be fabricated that only requires deep-subwavelength motions of perturbing objects in the resonator's near-field.