Observing and Controlling a Tamm Plasmon at the Interface with a Metasurface

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally that Tamm plasmons in the near-IR can be supported by a dielectric mirror interfaced with a metasurface, a discontinuous thin metal film periodically patterned on the sub-wavelength scale. More crucially, not only do Tamm plasmons survive the nano-patterning of the metal film, but they also become sensitive to external perturbations, as a result. In particular, by depositing a nematic liquid crystal on the outer side of the metasurface we were able to red-shift the spectral position of Tamm plasmon by 35 nm, while electrical switching of the liquid crystal enabled us to tune the wavelength of this notoriously inert excitation within a 10 nm range.