A high-efficiency programmable modulator for extreme ultraviolet light with nanometre feature size based on an electronic phase transition

Vaskivskyi, Igor (author), Mraz, Anže (author), Venturini, Rok (author), Jecl, Gregor (author), Vaskivskyi, Yevhenii (author)

The absence of efficient light modulators for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and X-ray photons considerably limits their real-life application, particularly when even slight complexity of the beam patterns is required. Here we report on a novel approach to reversible imprinting of a holographic mask in an electronic Wigner crystal material with a sub-90-nm feature size. The structure is imprinted on a sub-picosecond timescale using EUV laser pulses, and acts as a high-efficiency diffraction grating that deflects EUV or soft X-ray light. The imprinted nanostructure is stable after the removal of the exciting beams at low temperatures, but can be easily erased by a single heating beam. Modelling shows that the efficiency of the device can exceed 1%, approaching state-of-the-art etched gratings, but with the benefit of being programmable and tunable over a large range of wavelengths. The observed effect is based on the rapid change of lattice constant upon transition between metastable electronically ordered phases in a layered transition metal dichalcogenide. The proposed approach is potentially useful for creating tunable light modulators in the EUV and soft X-ray spectral ranges.

• Language: English
• Keywords: light modulators, extreme ultraviolet light, ultrafast photonics, condensed-matter physics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering; FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2024
• Number of pages: 7 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 18, iss. 5
• UDC: 53
• ISSN on article: 1749-4893
• DOI: 10.1038/s41566-024-01389-z
• COBISS.SI-ID: 186100483

Note

Šestim oštevilčenim stranem članka (458–463) sledi še neoštevilčena stran. (Datum opombe: 12. 11. 2024)

• Publication date in RUL: 12.11.2024

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Nature photonics
• Shortened title: Nat. photonics
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• ISSN: 1749-4893
• COBISS.SI-ID: 522182681

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.