Extreme tunability in aluminum doped Zinc Oxide plasmonic materials for near-infrared applications

Plasmonic materials (PMs), featuring large static or dynamic tunability, have significant impact on the optical properties due to their potential for applications in transformation optics, telecommunications, energy and biomedical areas. Among PMs, the carrier concentration and mobility are two tunable parameters, which control the plasma frequency of a metal. Here, we report on large static and dynamic tunability in wavelengths up to 640 nm in Al-doped ZnO based transparent conducting degenerate semiconductors by controlling both thickness and applied voltages. This extreme tunability is ascribed to an increase in carrier concentration with increasing thickness as well as voltage-induced thermal effects that eventually diminish the carrier concentration and mobility due to complex chemical transformations in the multilayer growth process. These observations could pave the way for optical manipulation of this class of materials for potential transformative applications.