MICROFLUIDIC TUNABLE METAMATERIAL FOR GIGAHERTZ FILTER ARRAY

A. Q. Liu
1,2
, W. M. Zhu
2
, Q. H. Song
1
, R. F. Huang
3
, S. K. Ting
3
, J. H. Teng
4
and X. H. Zhang
4

1
Xian Jiaotong University, 28 Xian Ning West Road, Xian, China 710049
2
School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798
3
Temasek Laboratories, 5A Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117411
4
Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, 5 Research Link, Singapore 117602


ABSTRACT
In this paper, we demonstrate a metamaterial tunable
filter with liquid metal, which can be tuned by changing the
air pressure within the channels. In experiment, it measures
a 3.3-GHz tuning range for the tunable metmaterial unit
with the working wavelength of 11.27 GHz. The tuning of
9 9 unit array is demonstrated. Different from traditional
metamaterials, the metal patterns of the tunable
metamaterial filter are liquid state which can be reshaped
once fabricated. The liquid state metal pattern not only
advances in flexible tuning method, but also results in large
tuning range for vast applications, such as tunable filter,
accelerometer and optical switch.

KEYWORDS
Metamaterials, GHz Filter, Microfludics, Phase control
array.

INTRODUCTION
Artificial materials, such as metamaterials, are
intensively studied due to their extraordinary optical
properties, such as negative refraction and hyperlens [1, 2].
Tunable filters and optical switches [3, 4] have been
intensively studied by altering the refractive index of the
surrounding media or by engaging the nonlinear effects of
the optical materials, such as electro-optical effects or
thermo-optical effects, which have widely been used in
tunable metamaterials [5-15]. Recently, a lot of progresses
have been made in developing metamaterials with
micromachined reconfigurable unit cells, which is driven
by micro actuators [16-21]. However, their tunablilities are
fundamentally limited by the pre-defined patterns of the
solid metal. Some tunable metamaterials with liquid metal
are demonstrated by shifting the liquid metal plug or just
simply fill or expel the air channel with mercury, which has
similar tuning mechanism as micromachined actuation and
phase change materials. In the meantime, the liquid metal
metamaterials offer more flexibility in tuning since the
optical properties of the metamaterials are directly result in
the geometry of the unit cells. However, it is difficult to
construct tunable metamaterials composited of conductive
liquid, such as mercury, galinstan and carbon nano-tube
solutions, due to the difficulties of defining and controlling
the shape of the liquid.
Microfluidics technology has been intensively used to
form and transport liquid plugs within micro channels.
Therefore, it is possible to use the microfluidic channels to
construct metamaterials with liquid metal. The geometries
of the metamaterial unit cells are determined by the shapes
of the channels, where the liquid metal is confined within.
The metamaterial elements can be tuned by pumping the
liquid metal plugs to the channels with different shapes. In
principle, tunable metamaterials with liquid metal are
possibly to be tuned by remolding the liquid metal to any
shape with equivalent volume. This tuning mechanism is
different from any other structural reconfigurable
metamaterials, which reshape the metamaterials element
by changing the relative positions of the pre-defined
patterns of solid metal. In this paper, ring-shaped channels
are used to demonstrate the tuning of the liquid metal
metamaterials split ring resoantors (SRR) via pneumatic
valves, which has potential applications as tunable filter
and optical switch. This paper is organized as the
following. Firstly the design of the liquid metal
metamaterials is given. Then followed by the numerical
analysis and experimental characterization. Finally, the
results are discussed.

DESIGN AND THEORY



Figure 1: The schematic of the air-pumped tunable
metamaterial. The yellow parts represent the liquid metal
which is controlled by pneumatic valves within the
channels. The liquid metal (Hg) is filled in the microfluidic
channels first and then expelled by the air, which is
injected from the air inlet. The gaps of the split ring
resonators (SRR) can be tuned by the pneumatic valves.
The inserts shows the working principle of the pneumatic
valves (upper left) and zoomed-in view of the single SRR
unit.

W4C.007
978-1-4673-5983-2/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE 2481 Transducers 2013, Barcelona, SPAIN, 16-20 June 2013
Figure 1 illustrates the schematic of the tunable
metamaterial. The air channels linked to liquid metal (Hg)
inlet and air inlet are connected to ring shaped structures, in
which the liquid metal (highlighted with yellow) is placed.
The liquid metal Inlet is linked to the air channels with the
width of 1 mm, which are named as liquid metal loading
channels. The air channels linked to air inlet are only 0.2
mm in width, which are named as air loading channels.
When the liquid metal is injected from liquid metal inlet, it
will not go to the air loading channels under low pumping
pressure. Therefore, the liquid metal filled all the liquid
metal channels and the ring-shaped channels. Then the air
is injected into the air loading channels from the air inlet,
which connected to the joint point of the ring-shaped
channels and the liquid metal loading channels. The extra
liquid metal within the liquid metal loading channel is
expelled from the channels by pumping the air inside the
channels.
The gap of the split ring is defined by the radian of
the air filled channel which can be controlled by the
pneumatic valves. When the air pressure within the
channels connected to the pneumatic valves is increasing,
the air gap will become larger. The gap will become
smaller when the air pressure is decreasing.


Figure 2: Working principle of the control system for each
pneumatic valve. The blocks with the crosses (blue) show
the blocking valves at the On-state, while the blocks
without the crosses (green) show the blocking valves at the
off state. The highlighted (red) channel is connected to the
pneumatic valve of the targeting SRR.

The pneumatic valves are controlled by the
ternary-notation control system as shown in Fig. 2. There
are altogether 81 pneumatic valves of the SRR unit cells for
the GHz filter with 9 9 array. Each pneumatic valve is
connected to one air pumping channel numbered from 0 to
80, which is shown as the vertical lines (pink) in Fig. 2. The
blocking valves are the horizontal channels (green and
blue) on the top of the air pumping channels, which are
controlled by series of blocking valves. The air pumping
channel can switch on the SRR pneumatic valves, only
when all the blocking valves are off. There are 12 block
channels, which form a ternary-notation control system by
grouping the adjacent 3 blocking channels into one bit. In
this way, each the 12 block channels form 4 bits of the
ternary notation, which can control 3
4
= 81 channels. Fig. 2
shows the example of tuning the channel 5 using the
ternary-notation control system. Bit 1 is 2 and Bit 2 is 1
since 5 = 3 + 2. The blocks with the crosses (blue) show the
blocking valves at the On-state, while the blocks without
the crosses (green) show the blocking valves at the off
state. The highlighted (red) channel is connected to the
pneumatic valve of the targeting SRR.
Figure 3 shows the numerical analysis of the tunable
metamaterial filter. The blue solid lines represent the
transmission spectra of the TM polarized incidence and the
red dotted lines show the TE polarized incidence. (a) when
the gap is 30 and (b) when the gap is 45.


(a)

(b)
Figure 3: The numerical analysis of the tunable
metamaterial filter. The blue solid lines represent the
transmission spectra of the TM polarized incidence and the
red dotted lines show the TE polarized incidence. (a) when
the gap is 30 and (b) when the gap is 45. The
transmission dip of TE polarized incidence is induced by
the dipole resonance which is due to the symmetry of the
incident electric field to the metamaterial unit cell
geometry. The two transmission dips of the TM polarized
incidence are due to the asymmetry resonances.

The transmission dip of TE polarized incidence is
induced by the dipole resonance which is due to the
symmetry of the incident electric field to the metamaterial
unit cell geometry. The two transmission dips of the TM
polarized incidence are due to the asymmetry resonances.

2482
The resonance dips are red shifted due to the increasing of
the air gaps of the SRR units, which breaks the symmetry
of the TE polarized light and remains the symmetry of the
TM polarized light. Therefore, the TE polarized is more
sensitive to the air gap change and results in a larger
frequency shift than that of the TM polarized light.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The fabricated GHz tunable filter is shown in Fig. 4,
which removes the control layer to have a better view of
the filter part. The liquid metal loaded channels and the air
loaded channels are both controlled by the syringe pumps.
Fig. 4(a) shows the overview of the tunable filter after
expel the extra liquid metal using the air loaded channel.
Each tunable metamaterial SRR unit consists of 2 L
liquid metal (mercury) and 0.5 L air, which are sealed
within the circle-shaped polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
with the radius of 2 mm as shown in Figure 4. The PDMS
channels are fabricated using the SU-8 hard mask and
bonded with a glass substrate. The liquid metal forms a
split ring pattern due to the constraint of the PDMS
channel.



Figure 4: The graphs of the fabricated tunable
metamaterial. The channels are fabricated on the PDMS
cover which is bonded to a 6-inch glass substrate. The
SRRs are formed by the liquid metal (Hg), which can be
tuned by the pneumatic valves. (a) shows the zoom-out
view of the 10 10 SRRs array. (b) and (c) shows the
zoomed-in view of the SRR at On and Off states,
respectively.


(a)

(b)
Figure 5: The measured transmission spectra of the
tunable metamaterial filter. The blue solid lines, the red
dotted lines and the green dash dotted lines represent the
transmission spectra when the gap is 30, 40 and 50,
respectively. (a) and (b) shows the transmission spectra of
TE and TM polarized incidence, respectively. The tuning of
the gaps cause larger resonance dips shifts of the TE
polarized incidence than those of the TM polarized light.
While the gap width also affects the resonance strength of
the TM polarized light.

Figure 5 shows the measured transmission spectra of
the tunable metamaterial filter. The blue solid lines, the red
dotted lines and the green dash dotted lines represent the
transmission spectra when the gap is 30, 40 and 50,
respectively. (a) and (b) shows the transmission spectra of
TE and TM polarized incidence, respectively. The tuning
of the gaps cause larger resonance dips shifts of the TE
polarized incidence than those of the TM polarized light.
While the gap width also affects the resonance strength of
the TM polarized light.

CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, a tunable metamaterial filter with liquid
metal is designed, fabricated and experimentally
demonstrated. The liquid metal patterns of the tunable
metamaterial can be tuned by changing the pressure within
the channels, which have promising application such as
GHz filter and switch.
2483
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would also like to acknowledge the
support from Environmental and Water Industry
Development Council of Singapore with the research grant
(Grant No. 1102-IRIS-05-02) and Science and Engineering
Research Council of A*STAR under SERC grant (Grant
No.1021650084).

REFERENCES
[1] R. A. Shelby, D. R. Smith and S. Schultz,
Experimental Verification of a Negative Index of
Refraction, Science, Vol. 292, pp. 77, 2001.
[2] J. B. Pendry, Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect
Lens, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 85, pp. 3966, 2000.
[3] W. M. Zhu, X. M. Zhang, A. Q. Liu, H. Cai, J. Tamil,
And T. Buorouina, A micromachined optical double
well for thermo-optic switching via resonant
tunneling effect,Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 92,
No.25, 251101, 2008.
[4] W. M. Zhu, X. M. Zhang, T. Zhong, A. Q. Liu and M.
Yu, Micromachined optical well structure for
thermo-optic switching, Applied Physics Letters,
Vol. 91, No.26, 261106, 2007.
[5] J. Y. Ou, E. Plum, L. Jiang and N. I. Zheludev,
Reconfigurable photonic metamaterials, Nano
Lett., vol. 11, pp. 2142-2144, 2011.
[6] H. T. Chen, J. F. O. Hara, A. K. Azad, A. J. Taylor, R.
D. Averitt, D. B. Shrekenhamer and W. J. Padilla
Experimental demonstration of frequency-agile
terahertz metamaterials, Nat. Photon., vol. 2, pp.
295-298, 2008.
[7] F. Zhang, Q. Zhao, W. Zhang, J. Sun, J. Zhou and D.
Lippens, Voltage tunable short wire-pair type of
metamaterial infiltrated by nematic liquid crystal,
Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 97, 134103, 2010.
[8] Y. Poo, R. X. Wu, G. H. He, P. Chen, J. Xu and R. F.
Chen, Experimental verification of a tunable
left-handed material by bias magnetic fields, Appl.
Phys. Lett., vol. 96, 161902, 2010.
[9] H. Zhao, J. Zhou, L. Kang and Q. Zhao, Tunable
two-dimensional let-handed material consisting of
ferrite rods and metallic wires, Opt. Exp., vol. 17,
pp. 13373-13380, 2009.
[10] A. Minovich, D. N. Neshev, D. A. Powell, I. V.
Shadrivov and Y. S. Kivshar, Tunable fishnet
metamaterials infiltrated by liquid crystals, Appl.
Phys. Lett., vol. 96, 193103, 2010.
[11] Z. L. Samson, K. F. MacDonald, F. D. Angelis, B.
Gholipour, K. Knight, C. C. Huang, E. D. Fabrizio, D.
W. Hewak and N. I. Zheludev, Metamaterial
electro-optic switch of nanoscale thickness, Appl.
Phys. Lett., Vol. 96, 143105, 2010.









[12] Y. Akahane, T. Asano, B. S. Song and S. Noda,
High-Q photonic nanocavity in a two-dimensional
photonic crystal, Nature, Vol. 425, pp. 944, 2003.
[13] M. Notomi, H. Taniyama, S. Mitsugi and E.
Kuramochi, Optomechanical Wavelength and
Energy Conversion in High-Q Double-Layer Cavities
of Photonic Crystal Slabs, Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 97,
023903, 2006.
[14] T. Tanabe, M. Notomi, E. Kuramochi, A. Shinya and
H. Taniyama, Trapping and delaying photons for
one nanosecond in an ultrasmall high-Q
photonic-crystal nanocavity, Nature Photon., Vol. 1,
pp. 49, 2007.
[15] Q. Liu, Y. Cui, D. Gardner, X. Li, S. He and I. I.
Smalyukh, Heteroepitaxial Decoration of Ag
Nanoparticles on Si Nanowires: A Case Study on
Raman Scattering and Mapping, Nano Lett., Vol. 10,
pp. 1347, 2010.
[16] W. M. Zhu, A. Q. Liu, W. Zhang, J. F. Tao, T.
Bourouina, J. H. Teng, X. H. Zhang, Q. Y. Wu, H.
Tanoto, H. C. Guo, G. Q. Lo and D. L. Kwong,
Polarization dependent state to polarization
independent state change in THz metamaterials,
Applied Physics Letters, Vol 99, 221102, 2011.
[17] W. M. Zhu, A. Q. Liu, X. M. Zhang, D. P. Tsai, T.
Bourouina, J. H. Teng, X. H. Zhang, H. C. Guo, H.
Tanoto, T. Mei, G. Q. Lo and D. L. Kwong,
Switchable magnetic metamaterials using
micromachining processes, Adv. Mat., vol. 23, pp.
1792-1796, 2011.
[18] Y. H. Fu, A. Q. Liu, W. M. Zhu, X. M. Zhang, D. P.
Tsai, J. B. Zhang, T. Mei, J. F. Tao, H. C. Guo, X. H.
Zhang, J. H. Teng, N. I. Zheludev, G. Q. Lo, and D. L.
Kwong, A micromachined reconfigurable
metamaterial via reconfiguration of asymmetric
split-ring resonators, Adv. Func. Mat., vol 21, pp.
3589-3594, 2011.
[19] W. M. Zhu, A. Q. Liu, T. Bourouina, D. P. Tsai, J. H.
Teng, X. H. Zhang, G. Q. Lo, D. L. Kwong and N. I.
Zheludev, Microelectromechanical Maltese-cross
metamaterial with tunable terahertz anisotropy,
Nature Communications, Vol 3, 1274, 2012.
[20] A. Q. Liu, W. M. Zhu, D. P. Tsai and N. I. Zheludev,
Micromachined tunable metamaterials: a review,
Journal of Optics, Vol 14, 114009, 2012
[21] W. Zhang, W. M. Zhu , E. P. Li , H. Tanoto , Q. Y.
Wu , J. H. Teng , X. H. Zhang , J. M. Tsai , G. Q. Lo,
D. L. Kwong and A. Q. Liu, Micromachined
Switchable Metamaterial with Dual Resonance,
Applied Physics Letters, Vol 101, 151902, 2012

CONTACT
A. Q. Liu, +65 6790-4336, eaqliu@ntu.edu.sg
2484