Infrared encoding
of images. Credit--M. Makhsiyan/ONERA
(December 24, 2015) Researchers
at MINAO, a joint lab between The French Aerospace Lab in Palaiseau and the
Laboratoire de Photonique et de Nanostructures in Marcoussis, have recently
demonstrated metamaterial resonators that allow emission in the infrared to be
tuned through the geometry of the resonator.
Their setup uses sub-wavelength scale metal-insulator-metal,
or MIM, resonators to spatially and spectrally control emitted light up to its
diffraction limit. This allows an array of resonators to be used to form an
image in the infrared - much as way the pixels in a television screen can form
a visible light image - with potential breakthrough applications in infrared
televisions, biochemical sensing, optical storage, and anti-counterfeit
devices.
“MIM metasurfaces are great candidates for infrared emitters
thanks to their ability to completely control thermal emission, which is
groundbreaking compared to the usual thermal sources, such as a blackbody,”
said Patrick Bouchon, a researcher at The French Aerospace Lab, also known as
ONERA. “Moreover, this study shows the possibility to create infrared images
with the equivalent of visible colors.”
Bouchon and his colleagues detail their work this week in
Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing. The researchers previously
demonstrated the ability to manipulate light through tailoring its absorption
or converting its polarization, and have investigated the “funneling effect,”
in which incoming light energy is coupled to a nanoantenna.