Patent attributes
A tunable metamaterial has a two dimensional array of resonant annular ring elements; and a plurality of voltage controllable electrical tuning elements disposed in or adjacent openings in each of said ring elements, each of said voltage controllable electrical tuning element ohmically contacting portions of only one of said ring elements. The voltage controllable electrical tuning elements may comprise highly doped semiconductor tunnel diodes, or the charge accumulation layer at the semiconductor/insulator interface of a metal-insulator-semiconductor structure, or nanoelectromechanical (NEMs) capacitors. The tunable metamaterial may be used, for example, in an optical beam steering device using the aforementioned tunable optical metamaterial in which a free-space optical beam is coupled into a receiving portion of a plane of the optical metamaterial and is steered out of a transmitter portion of the plane of the optical metamaterial in controllable azimuthal and elevational directions. The tunable metamaterial additionally has other applications.
