Near-infrared tunable narrow filter properties in a 1D photonic crystal containing semiconductor metamaterial photonic quantum-well defect

•Study the tunable NIR narrow filters with semiconductor metamaterial PQW.•The number of the defect mode is independent of the periods of the PQW.•Defect mode's frequency gets red-shifted as the filling factor increases.•Defect mode's frequency gets blue-shifted for both TE and TM waves.

The near-infrared (NIR) narrow filter properties in the transmission spectra of a one-dimensional photonic crystal doped with semiconductor metamaterial photonic quantum-well defect (PQW) were theoretically studied. The behavior of the defect mode as a function of the stack number of the PQW defect structure, the filling factor of semiconductor metamaterial layer, the polarization and the angle of incidence were investigated for Al-doped ZnO (AZO) and ZnO as the semiconductor metamaterial layer. It is found that the frequency of the defect mode can be tuned by variation of the period of the defect structure, polarization, incidence angle, and the filling factor of the semiconductor metamaterial layer. It is also shown that the number of the defect mode is independent of the period of the PQW defect structure and is in sharp contrast with the case where a common dielectric or metamaterial defect are used. The results also show that for both polarizations the defect mode is red-shifted as the number of the defect period and filling factor increase. An opposite trend is observed as the angle of incidence increases. The proposed structure could provide useful information for designing new types of tuneable narrowband filters at NIR region.

Graphical abstractWe perform a theoretical investigation of the near-infrared narrow filter properties in the transmission spectrum of a one-dimensional photonic crystal doped with semiconductor metamaterial photonic quantum-well defect (PQW). It is found that the defect mode’s frequency can be tuned by the variations of the defect structure’s period, polarization, incidence angle, and also the filling factor corresponding to the semiconductor metamaterial layer. In addition, the number of the defect mode is independent of the periods of the PQW defect structure, which is in sharp contrast to the case of using usual dielectric or metamaterial defect.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide