Low-power design of electrotunable color filters and optical switches

We propose low-power designs of electrotunable absorption- and transmission-mode color filters and optical switches based on a metal–dielectric–metal structure. By applying voltage across an electro-optic polymer, used as a dielectric layer, tunable color filtering is achieved over a voltage range of − 10 V to + 10 V . Moreover, by adjusting each layer thickness, such designs can also be used as optical switches at 1550 nm telecom wavelength, exhibiting unmatched ∼ 99 % switching efficiency, operable with only 5 V power supply. Our theoretical results agree well with full-wave simulations. Our design is lithography-free, large-area compatible, power-efficient, polarization-independent, and angle-insensitive and has an extremely narrow bandwidth (12 nm).