Optimally designed tunable phase change material-based narrowband perfect absorber

Abstract. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in active metasurfaces. In particular, phase change material-based metasurfaces offering all-optical reconfigurability are being explored. Despite recent progress, further improvement in device reconfiguration energies and optical contrast achievable between the amorphous and crystalline states is desirable. In this work, we demonstrate that using a mirror-backed chalcogenide-based narrowband perfect absorber metasurface can significantly improve the device’s reflection contrast at much lower energies than its mirrorless case. By considering a GST225 metasurface operating in the near IR, our systematic numerical study finds improved reflection contrast (up to −32  dB, Q-factor 19.22 compared with 9.59 dB, Q-factor 11 for the mirrorless case). For the mirrored case, the thermal study finds faster crystallization (up to 6 times) at reduced reconfiguration thresholds (72 times lower) compared with the mirrorless case. This results in a more than 2 orders of magnitude higher device figure of merit [defined as the change in reflection contrast (in dB) to a corresponding change in optical energy (in nJ)] compared with the mirrorless case. The results are promising for high-performance metasurfaces at reduced switching energies.