METAMATERIALS

http://www.cfn.uni-karlsruhe.de/?id=65 A1.5: Photonic Metamaterials

A1: Photonic Crystals A1.1: Theory of Photonic Crystal Structures and Concepts for Photonic Crystal-Based Devices A1.2: Light-Matter Interaction in Nano-Photonic Systems A1.4: Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals A1.5: Photonic Metamaterials A1.6: Tunable Photonic Metamaterials

Introduction
Metamaterials: Beyond natural substances At optical frequencies, electromagnetic waves interact with an ordinary optical material, e.g., glass, via the electronic polarizability of the material. By contrast, the corresponding magnetizability is negligible for frequencies above a few THz, or in other words, its magnetic permeability is identical to unity (=1). Consequently, the optical properties of an ordinary optical material are completely characterized by its electric permittivity (). As a result, we can only directly manipulate the electric component of light with an appropriate optical device while we have no immediate handle on the corresponding magnetic component. Photonic metamaterials open up a way to overcome this constraint set by ordinary materials. The basic idea is to create an artificial crystal with deep sub-wavelength periods. Analogous to an ordinary optical material, such a photonic metamaterial can be treated as an effective medium which is characterized by effective material parameters () and (). However, the proper design of the elementary building blocks ("artificial atoms") of the photonic metamaterial allows for a non-vanishing magnetic response and even <0 at optical frequencies - despite the fact that constituent materials of the photonic metamaterial are non-magnetic.

What is the excitement all about? Which new perspectives arise from metamaterials that allow for directly manipulating both the electric and the magnetic component of light? Forty years ago, V.G. Veselago theoretically investigated the electrodynamic properties of media which posses a negative electric permittivity together with a negative magnetic permeability in the same frequency range. He predicted that the wave vector of a wave propagating through such a medium is antiparallel to its Poynting vector.