Thermo-optic dynamics of effective epsilon-near-zero media

Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) photonic media exhibit extreme optical dispersion that enables unconventional light–matter interactions and enhanced optical nonlinearities. Recent studies suggested that thermo-optic effects, traditionally regarded as slow and secondary, can be strongly modified under the ENZ condition. We establish thermo-optic reconfiguration of effective media as a unified physical framework to describe both static and transient thermo-optic phenomena in ENZ systems. Using an effective medium operating in the visible spectral range, we experimentally demonstrate that temperature variation, whether under thermal equilibrium or transient excitation, reconfigures the constitutive parameters defining the ENZ condition, giving rise to pronounced linear and nonlinear optical responses. At thermal equilibrium, this reconfiguration manifests itself as a static ENZ wavelength shift with an unprecedentedly large thermal-spectral modulation rate and an effective thermo-optic coefficient on the order of 10−1 K−1. Under ultrafast excitation, we observe a picosecond-scale thermo-optic nonlinear response induced by transient heating. This response can be consistently interpreted as a time-dependent reconfiguration of the effective ENZ medium, corresponding to a transient evolution of its optical parameters. By reframing thermo-optic effects as a process of static and dynamic reconfiguration of effective media, we provide a unified perspective that bridges thermo-optic physics, effective-medium theory, and time-varying photonics.