Optical switching of a metamaterial by temperature controlling

We have fabricated a metamaterial of metal/semiconductor/metal sandwich nanostrips structure comprising a pair of gold strips and a vanadium dioxide (VO(2)) strip. The optical response of the metamaterial has been studied. The results indicate the nanostructure with VO(2) strips can be used as a temperature-controlling optical switch and the mechanism of this switch can be explained by the magnetic resonance. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3458706]