Dynamic tuning of optical absorbance and structural color of VO2-based metasurface

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is an attractive thermal-control material exhibiting low thermal hysteresis and excellent temperature cycling performance. However, the deficiencies including weak spectral shift and narrow-band absorption during insulating-metallic transitions hinder its application in optoelectronics. The transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) can provide a promising solution with their high dielectric properties and robust optical coupling. Here, we report a MoS2/VO2/Au/Si metasurface and investigate the dynamic tunability of its optical absorbance and structural color upon heating via spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements and numerical simulations. The first-principles calculations reveal that the dielectric absorptions of metallic and insulating VO2 oppositely response to temperature, closely related to the difference in the transitions of O-2p states. Finite-element simulations reveal that the introduction of MoS2 nanostructure induces more absorption peaks by 2∼3 and achieves strong absorption in the full wavelength range of visible light. The Fabry–Perot (F–P) resonance is the critical factor for the optimized optical absorption. The structural color is sensitive to environmental perturbations at high-ε state of VO2, lower oblique incidence angles, and heights of MoS2. This work seeks to facilitate the spectral modulation of phase change metamaterials and can be extended to photoelectric detection and temperature sensing applications.