Metamaterial and dynamically reconfigurable hologram employing same

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9323217-B2
Application number	US-200813142484-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 29, 2008
Priority date	Dec 29, 2008
Publication date	Apr 26, 2016
Grant date	Apr 26, 2016

Abstract

A negative index material (or metamaterial) crossbar includes a first layer of approximately parallel nanowires and a second layer of approximately parallel nanowires that overlay the nanowires in the first layer. The nanowires in the first layer are approximately perpendicular in orientation to the nanowires in the second layer. Each nanowire of the first layer and each nanowire of the second layer has substantially regularly spaced fingers. The crossbar further includes resonant elements at nanowire intersections between the respective layers. Each resonant element includes two fingers of a nanowire in the first layer and two fingers of a nanowire in the second layer.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A negative index material crossbar comprising:
a first layer of approximately parallel nanowires, each nanowire of the first layer having substantially regularly spaced fingers;
a second layer of approximately parallel nanowires that overlay the nanowires in the first layer, each nanowire of the second layer having substantially regularly spaced fingers, wherein the nanowires in the first layer are approximately perpendicular in orientation to the nanowires in the second layer; and
resonant elements at nanowire intersections, wherein each resonant element includes two fingers of a nanowire in the first layer and two fingers of a nanowire in the second layer,
wherein a finger comprises a protuberance extending from a side of a nanowire, the fingers being separated by notches.

2. The crossbar of claim 1 wherein the resonant elements further comprise an intermediate layer configured as one of:
resistors;
semiconductor p-n junctions; and
nonvolatile memristors.

3. The crossbar of claim 2 wherein the nonvolatile memristor further comprises:
at least one primary active region comprising at least one material for transporting a dopant species that controls the flow of charge carriers through the memristor; and
a secondary active region comprising at least one material for providing a source/sink of the dopant species for the at least one primary active region.

4. The crossbar of claim 1 wherein:
fingers of adjacent nanowires within a same layer are substantially aligned with one another;
notches between fingers of nanowires in the first layer are substantially aligned with notches between fingers of the nanowires in the second layer; and
cross-sectional dimensions of the nanowires in the first layer are relatively larger than cross-sectional dimensions of the nanowires in the second layer.

5. The crossbar of claim 1 wherein the resonant elements further comprise appropriate voltages applied to resonant element overlaying nanowires to shift a negative refractive index for a first range of wavelengths to a second range of wavelengths.

6. A dynamically reconfigurable hologram comprising:
a phase-control layer including the negative index material crossbar of claim 1 and including a two-dimensional array of phase-modulation pixels; and
an intensity-control layer including a two-dimensional array of intensity-control pixels, wherein a three-dimensional image is to be produced by electronically addressing individual phase-modulation pixels and individual intensity-control pixels to phase shift and control the intensity of light emanating from the hologram.

7. The hologram of claim 6 wherein the phase-control layer further comprises:
a first conductive layer;
a second conductive layer; and
a phase modulation layer sandwiched between the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer.

8. The hologram of claim 6 wherein electronically addressing the phase-modulation pixels further comprises a selectively applied voltage to each phase-modulation pixel, each selectively applied voltage changing a refractive index of a phase-modulation pixel.

9. The hologram of claim 8 wherein changing the refractive index of a phase-modulation pixel further comprises changing a refractive index of resonant elements comprising the phase-modulation pixel.

10. The hologram of claim 6 wherein electronically addressing the intensity-control pixels further comprises a voltage applied to each intensity-control pixel, each voltage changing a refractive index of an intensity-control pixel.

11. The hologram of claim 6 wherein the intensity-control layer further comprises a liquid crystal layer.

12. The hologram of claim 6 wherein each intensity-control pixel further comprises a color filter.

13. The hologram of claim 6 wherein the three-dimensional image is to be produced by light transmitted through the hologram from a quasimonochromatic light source located on a side of the hologram opposite to where the three-dimensional image is to be produced.

14. The hologram of claim 6 wherein the three-dimensional image is to be produced by light reflected from the hologram from a quasimonochromatic light source located a same side of the hologram as where the three-dimensional image is to be produced.

15. A system for generating a three-dimensional image comprising:
a computer system including a processor and memory;
the dynamically reconfigurable hologram of claim 6 and coupled to the computer system; and
a light source positioned and configured to emit quasimonochromatic light into the hologram, wherein data representing the three-dimensional image is stored in the memory, and wherein the processor executes a computer program that displays data as the three-dimensional image by electronically addressing the phase-modulation pixels and the intensity-control pixels to phase shift and control the intensity of light emanating from the hologram.

16. A dynamically reconfigurable hologram having pixels comprising:
a phase-control layer divided into a two-dimensional array of phase-modulation pixels; and
an intensity-control layer including a two-dimensional array of intensity-control pixels,
wherein a three-dimensional image is to be produced by electronically addressing individual phase-modulation pixels and individual intensity-control pixels to phase shift and control the intensity of light emanating from the pixels of the dynamically reconfigurable hologram, and
wherein the phase-control layer comprises:
a first layer of approximately parallel first nanowires, each first nanowire having substantially regularly spaced fingers extending from opposite sides of the first nanowire;
a second layer of approximately parallel second nanowires that overlay the first layer, each second nanowire having substantially regularly spaced fingers extending from opposite sides of the second nanowire, wherein the first nanowires are approximately perpendicular in orientation to the second nanowires in the respective first and second layers and form nanowire intersections; and
resonant elements at the nanowire intersections, wherein each resonant element includes two fingers of a first nanowire and two fingers of a second nanowire.

17. The dynamically reconfigurable hologram of claim 16 , wherein the phase-control layer further comprising a phase modulation layer sandwiched between the first layer and the second layer, the phase modulation layer being configured as one or more of a resistor, a semiconductor junction, and a memristor.

18. The dynamically reconfigurable hologram of claim 16 , wherein electronically addressing the phase-modulation pixels comprises selectively applying a voltage to a phase-modulation pixel, the selectively applied voltage to change a refractive index of a phase-modulation pixel.

19. The dynamically reconfigurable hologram of claim 16 wherein the three-dimensional image is to be produced by light transmitted through the dynamically reconfigurable hologram.

20. A system to generate a three-dimensional image comprising:
a computer system including a processor and memory;
a dynamically reconfigurable hologram coupled to the computer system; and
a light source positioned and configured to emit quasimonochromatic light into the dynamically reconfigurable hologram,
wherein data representing the three-dimensional image is to be stored in the memory, and wherein the processor is to execute a computer program to display the stored data as the three-dimensional image by electronica

Assignees

• Wang Shih-Yuan
• Bratkovski Alexandre M
• Williams R Stanley
• Li Jingjing
• Wu Wei
• Kuekes Philip J
• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Wang Shih-Yuan
• Bratkovski Alexandre M
• Williams R Stanley
• Li Jingjing
• Wu Wei
• Kuekes Philip J

Classifications

• G03H2225/22

  Electrically addressed SLM [EA-SLM] · CPC title

• G03H2001/0224

  Active addressable light modulator, i.e. Spatial Light Modulator [SLM] · CPC title

• G03H1/2249

  Holobject properties · CPC title

• G03H2225/32

  Phase only · CPC title

• G03H1/2294

  Addressing the hologram to an active spatial light modulator · CPC title