Smart near-infrared photonic band gap engineering

Abstract This work presents a novel near-infrared (NIR) one-dimensional photonic crystal (1D-PC) architecture that uniquely integrates a semiconductor metamaterial (SMM) with a low-loss silver–nanocomposite (NC) layer to engineer smart and tunable photonic band gaps (PBGs). Unlike conventional metallic-based metamaterial structures suffering from high Ohmic losses and limited gap tunability, the proposed multilayer system employs Al-doped ZnO/ZnO SMM—an alternative plasmonic medium exhibiting negative refractive index behavior with substantially reduced absorption. Using the transfer matrix method (TMM), we theoretically demonstrate the formation of highly pronounced and widely tunable PBGs as well as the emergence of longitudinal plasmon-polariton (LPP) gaps under oblique incidence—an effect unattainable in isotropic PCs. Additionally, the structure enables precise control over band-edge sharpness, spectral position, and gap multiplication through engineering key parameters including layer thicknesses, nanoparticles’ filling fraction, host dielectric permittivity, and incidence angle. These capabilities directly overcome limitations of existing pulse-control and gap-generation photonic platforms that rely on fixed-response materials and narrow bandwidth operation. The proposed NC-SMM-PC therefore offers a significant advancement toward ultra-compact NIR optical reflectors, pulse-shaping components, and reconfigurable photonic devices with improved efficiency, lower losses, and richer dispersion characteristics.