Scientific Achievement
Foundry industry users and staff, designed, created, characterized, and demonstrated the first optical metasurfaces made from gallium phosphide (GaP) thin films.
Significance and Impact
GaP thin films have superior optical properties for metasurfacesfor visible light applications, potentially unlocking a material that offers greater functionality for advanced optical devices.
Research Details
- As a single crystal, GaP has a high indirect bandgap and its index of refraction is significantly higher than other transparent materials. However, growing or depositing these thin films on transparent substrates, as well as nanopatterning GaP films, is limited.
- The researchers designed a cost-effective and scalable approach by sputtering GaP onto glass or sapphire wafers.
- The team fabricated and demonstrated three metasurface designs with different functions and geometric properties to demonstrate the potential of this method and material for applications in the visible range.
