  A switchable metasurface composed of plasmonic split ring resonators and a
dye-doped liquid crystal is developed. The transmission of the metasurface in
the infrared spectral range can be changed by illuminating the dye-doped liquid
crystal with light in the visible spectral range. The effect is particularly
efficient in the case of hybrid alignment of the liquid crystal, i. e.
alignment of the director perpendicular to the surface on one substrate and
parallel alignment on the counter substrate. This all-optical switching effect
can be attributed to the behavior described in earlier works as colossal
optical nonlinearity or surface-induced nonlinear optical effect.
