Reconfigurable broadband TM-pass polarizer enabled by anisotropic phase change metamaterial

We propose a reconfigurable broadband transverse-magnetic (TM)-mode-pass polarizer enabled by an anisotropic phase-change metamaterial. The tunable anisotropic optical response is achieved by periodically stacking antimony selenide (Sb 2 Se 3 ) and silica thin films, leveraging the reversible phase change of Sb 2 Se 3 . By coupling this anisotropic multilayer metamaterial cladding (MMC) to a single-mode waveguide, the leakage of transverse-electric (TE) modes can be controlled by the phase state of Sb 2 Se 3 , while the TM mode remains well-confined within the waveguide for both phases of Sb 2 Se 3 . The proposed reconfigurable polarizer demonstrates a high polarization extinction ratio exceeding 24 dB and a low insertion loss of less than 0.14 dB in the telecommunication C + L band, which holds promising potential for on-chip optical signal processing in reconfigurable integrated circuits.