Gigahertz Modulation of a Fully Dielectric Nonlocal Metasurface

Nonlocal metasurfaces are currently emerging as advanced tools for the manipulation of electromagnetic radiation, going beyond the widely explored Huygens metasurface concept. Nonetheless, the lack of an unified approach for their fast and efficient tunability still represents a serious challenge to overcome. This study reports on the gigahertz modulation of a dielectric slab-based, nonlocal (i.e., angle-dispersive) metasurface, whose operation relies on the optomechanical coupling with a mechanical wave excited piezoelectrically by a transducer integrated on the same chip. Importantly, the metasurface region is free from any conductive material, thus eliminating optical losses, and making the device of potential interest for delicate environments such as high-power apparatuses or quantum optical systems.