Cheng Zengguang, Milne Tara, Salter Patrick, Kim Judy S, Humphrey Samuel, Booth Martin, Bhaskaran Harish
State Key Laboratory of ASIC and System, School of Microelectronics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PH, UK.
Sci Adv. 2021 Jan 1;7(1). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abd7097. Print 2021 Jan.
The use of metals of nanometer dimensions to enhance and manipulate light-matter interactions for emerging plasmonics-enabled nanophotonic and optoelectronic applications is an interesting yet not highly explored area of research beyond plasmonics. Even more importantly, the concept of an active metal that can undergo an optical nonvolatile transition has not been explored. Here, we demonstrate that antimony (Sb), a pure metal, is optically distinguishable between two programmable states as nanoscale thin films. We show that these states, corresponding to the crystalline and amorphous phases of the metal, are stable at room temperature. Crucially from an application standpoint, we demonstrate both its optoelectronic modulation capabilities and switching speed using single subpicosecond pulses. The simplicity of depositing a single metal portends its potential for use in any optoelectronic application where metallic conductors with an actively tunable state are important.
利用纳米尺寸的金属来增强和操控光与物质的相互作用，以用于新兴的基于等离激元的纳米光子学和光电子学应用，这是一个有趣但在等离激元学之外尚未得到充分探索的研究领域。更重要的是，能够经历光学非易失性转变的活性金属概念尚未被探索。在这里，我们证明了纯金属锑（Sb）作为纳米级薄膜在两种可编程状态下在光学上是可区分的。我们表明，这些对应于金属晶相和非晶相的状态在室温下是稳定的。从应用的角度来看至关重要的是，我们使用单个亚皮秒脉冲展示了其光电子调制能力和开关速度。沉积单一金属的简便性预示着它在任何需要具有主动可调状态的金属导体的光电子应用中的潜在用途。
