Naslov
From RF Metamaterials to Nanophotonics and back (Is it possible to bridge the gap between engineers and physicists?)

Autori
Hrabar, Silvio

Izvornik
University of Michigan

Vrsta, podvrsta
Ostale vrste radova, ostalo

Godina
2014

Ključne riječi
metamaterials ; nano-photonics

Sažetak
Almost fifteen years have passed from the birth of the field of RF electromagnetic metamaterials. These are artificial structures, electromagnetic properties (permittivity and permeability) of which are not found in (macroscopically) continuous, naturally occurring materials. Metamaterials have brought some novel intriguing physical phenomena such as negative refraction, sub-wavelength propagation, resolution-free imaging, just to mention a few Engineering applications that make use of this novel physics deal with the decreases in the size and weight as well as improvements in the performance of classical electromagnetic (EM) components such as waveguides, resonators, antennas and scatterers. On top of this, they are also examples of novel devices that had not existed before such as super-lenses and invisibility cloaks. Majority of these applications have been demonstrated in the RF regime. Currently, there are a lot of efforts toward extending these ideas into the optical regime by the use of materials with negative permittivity that are already available in nature (so-called plasmonic materials). Unfortunately, ‘plasmonics’ and ‘nanophotonics) are quite often taken as a fields completely different that the field of RF metamaterials, although they share similar basic principles. One of the reasons for this opinion is the fact that RF metamaterials are mostly studied by an engineering community while plasmonics is often driven by physicists. This division is certainly not beneficial for anybody and a significant development can be expected only through an interdisciplinary approach. This first part of the presentation analyzes the basic similarities and differences between RF and plasmonic metamaterials using a common approach that takes care of both the background physics and real-world applications. In the second part, it will be shown that accumulated knowledge from RF engineering can be successfully transferred to nanooptics and vice versa. Particularly, the examples of ‘scaled RF experiments’ that mimic behavior of plasmonic and nanophotonics devices (nano-spheres, waveguides, magnetic plasmons, D-dot wires, and graphene sheets), will be shown. This approach, developed at University of Zagreb, enables investigation of basic principles of nano-electromagnetics devices without expensive nano-technology, using only standard RF and microwave facilities. Furthermore, a possibility of extending the principles of recently introduced ultra-broadband non-Foster active metamaterials into an optical part of EM spectrum will be discussed. The last example reports graphene and associated devices fabricated using home-made facilities built through the Ph.D. student project. In Author’s opinion, all these examples clearly show that the fields of metamaterials and nanophotonics belong to the common ‘playground’, in which both the engineers and physicists should have fun together.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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