No Arabic abstract
A wedge-shaped structure made of split-ring resonators (SRR) and wires is numerically simulated to evaluate its refraction behavior. Four frequency bands, namely, the stop band, left-handed band, ultralow-index band, and positive-index band, are distinguished according to the refracted field distributions. Negative phase velocity inside the wedge is demonstrated in the left-handed band and the Snells law is conformed in terms of its refraction behaviors in different frequency bands. Our results confirmed that negative index of refraction indeed exists in such a composite metamaterial and also provided a convincing support to the results of previous Snells law experiments.
A robust wedge setup is proposed to unambiguously demonstrate negative refraction for negative index metamaterials. We applied our setup to several optical metamaterials from the literature and distinctly observed the phenomena of negative refraction. This further consolidates the reported negative-index property. It is found there generally exists a lateral shift for the outgoing beam through the wedge. We derived a simple expression for calculating this beam shift and interestingly, it provides us a strategy to quantitatively estimate the loss of the wedge material (Im[n]). Addition- ally, we offered a design of metamaterials, compatible with nano-imprinting-lithography, showing negative refractive index in the visible regime (around yellow-light wavelengths). The multi-layer- system retrieval was utilized to extract the effective refractive index of the metamaterial. It was also intuitively characterized through our wedge setup to demonstrate corresponding phenomena of refraction.
Negative index metamaterials (NIMs) give rise to unusual and intriguing properties and phenomena, which may lead to important applications such as superlens, subwavelength cavity and slow light devices. However, the negative refractive index in metamaterials normally requires a stringent condition of simultaneously negative permittivity and negative permeability. A new class of negative index metamaterials - chiral NIMs, have been recently proposed. In contrast to the conventional NIMs, chiral NIMs do not require the above condition, thus presenting a very robust route toward negative refraction. Here we present the first experimental demonstration of a chiral metamaterial exhibiting negative refractive index down to n=-5 at terahertz frequencies, with only a single chiral resonance. The strong chirality present in the structure lifts the degeneracy for the two circularly polarized waves and relieves the double negativity requirement. Chiral NIM are predicted to possess intriguing electromagnetic properties that go beyond the traditional NIMs, such as opposite signs of refractive indices for the two circular polarizations and negative reflection. The realization of terahertz chiral NIMs offers new opportunities for investigations of their novel electromagnetic properties, as well as important terahertz device applications.
Negative-index refraction is achieved in a lamellar composite with epsilon-negative (ENG) and mu-negative (MNG) materials stacked alternatively. Based on the effective medium approximation, simultaneously negative effective permittivity and permeability of such a lamellar composite are obtained theoretically and further proven by full-wave simulations. Consequently, the famous left-handed metamaterial comprising split ring resonators and wires is interpreted as an analogy of such an ENG-MNG lamellar composite. In addition, beyond the effective medium approximation, the propagating field squeezed near the ENG/MNG interface is demonstrated to be left-handed surface waves with backward phase velocity.
By introducing a new mechanism based on purely imaginary conjugate metamaterials (PICMs), we reveal that bidirectional negative refraction and planar focusing can be obtained using a pair of PICMs, which is a breakthrough to the unidirectional limit in parity time (PT) symmetric systems. Compared with PT symmetric systems that require two different kinds of materials, the proposed negative refraction can be realized with only two identical media. In addition, asymmetric excitation with bidirectional total transmission is observed in our PICM system. Therefore, a new way to realize negative refraction is presented, with more properties than those in PT symmetric systems.
We report experiments of light transmissivity at wavelengths: 532 and 400 nm, through an Au film with a wedge shape. Our results mimic the negative refraction reported by others for so-called left handed materials. A mimic of negative refraction is observed, even though this medium is well known to be right handed, and thus its refractive index has a positive real part. Analogous results are obtained with a glass wedge at 320nm where absorption dominates. The experiment is explained by the wave losses that dominate over propagation, like in the observation of negative refraction, already reported in developed metamaterial wedges. We design and propose an experiment with metamaterials by using thicker wires, in correspondence with light experiments that should conclusively determine whether refraction is positive or negative.