One Dimensional Metallo-Dielectric Structures and their Applications

I.

Introduction
It is known that both electrons and electromagnetic waves have both particle and

wave nature. From solid state physics, it is also known that when an electron wave travels
in a periodic potential of a crystal, they are arranged into discrete energy bands separated
by energy bands called Band Gaps. Analogues to this, EM waves travelling in a periodic
structure experience frequency band gaps, and the waves which fall in this gap do not
propagate. These frequency gaps are called as Photonic Band Gaps (PBG). (Soukoulis,
1996)
Nearly all early applications of PBGs have been in optical domain and numerous
techniques and structures for the application of PBGs have been proposed in literature.
Many of these devices have electronic analogs. Some of these are (Soukoulis, 1996):
1. Optical Transistor or Switch: This is an optical limiter that allows the propagation of a
low intensity beam of light, while it reflects a high intensity beam. When used in
combination with a second reference beam, it has been shown that the limiter can
operate as an optical transistor or switch.
2. Optical Diode: a beam can either be reflected or transmitted through a device
depending on the direction of approach: right propagating waves may be reflected,
while a left propagating signal may be transmitted.
3. Frequency Up Converter: These are second harmonic generator that utilizes band-edge
and nonlinear effects to provide the phase matching needed for efficient frequency upconversion.

All these early band gap structures have a generic structure as shown in Figure 1, which
are composed of alternating high and low index layers. Each layer can be chosen such that
its width is a fraction of the size of a reference wavelength, usually one quarter of the
reference wavelength. This forms a quarter wave stacks. As a consequence of this
arrangement of the dielectric layers, interference effects cause some wavelengths to be
transmitted, while a range of wavelengths centered about the reference wavelength, often
referred to as band-gap wavelengths, are completely reflected (Soukoulis, 1996).

Figure 1. Transmittance vs frequency for the generic PBG structure shown in the inset (Soukoulis, 1996)

Typically, the materials used in the fabrication of PBG structures are dielectric or
semiconductor substances, due to their low absorption characteristics. The main concern
over the material choice is, however, that the materials used should not absorb light to any
significant extent, so as not to compromise device operation. For this reason, metallic
substances are almost exclusively used to enhance the reflective properties of dielectric or
semiconductor materials by designing and incorporating within particular device thick
metallic films, such as silver, nickel, copper, aluminum, or gold.

Nevertheless, owing to the interesting properties metallic inclusions inside dielectrics

exhibit a number of 2-D and 3-D PBG structures have been studied and applied to various
applications in both Optical (Soukoulis, 1996) and lower RF frequency domains. At the RF
frequency they are however categorized into Electromagnetic Band Gap Structures (EBG),
which have been widely used previously in Antenna applications for miniaturization and
surface wave reduction. But in all these cases only the reflective property of metals is used.
In this report the focus is on the applications of transmissive properties of Metals by
using alternate layers of metals and dielectrics. At this point it is important to notice that,
we know from skin depth theory that externally incident waves will propagate
approximately these respective distances inside the metal, depending on the incident
wavelength, before most of the part is reflected back. However, the concept of skin depth is
applicable only when the wave is incident on uniform, thick, highly reflective, metal films.
However, we find that the concept of skin depth looses its meaning in the case of a periodic
structure, where the presence of closely spaced boundaries, i.e., spatial discontinuities of
the index of refraction, alters the physical properties of the structure as a whole (Soukoulis,
1996). The important modifications include;
1. Effective group velocity near the band edge
2. Transmission and Reflection Coefficient
3. Absorption Coefficient inside the metal.
It is worth noticing that each of this modification of properties from conventional thick
metal could be used separately in different applications. In the following sections firstly a
brief theory and results reported in (Soukoulis, 1996) on One Dimensional Metallo-

Dielectric Photonic Band Gap Material is presented, followed by some of its applications in
Optical Frequency Domain (section II), low frequency power line applications (section III)
and some limited applications at Microwave frequencies (section IV).
II.
1 D Meallo-Dielectric Material at Optical Frequencies
1. Structure
Similar to the generic PBG Structure shown in figure 1, the 1 D Meallo-Dielectric
structure has alternating layers of Metals and dielectric. The usual metals used are gold,
silver and copper. For the material separating the metal films a low loss dielectric or
semiconducting materials may be used [2]. The individual metal layers are required to be as
small as possible (of the order of skin depth), however, the net thickness across the entire
structure may be a hundreds of skin depth. The thickness of the dielectric layers may be
greater than skin depth.
2. Examples and Theory
Figure 2 shows an example of the 1 D Meallo-Dielectric structure and its Transitivity
compared to a single layer of metal, in this case silver (Ag). These calculations are
performed using Transmission Matrix Method.
It is shown here that this sample transmits 2.5% of the incident red light, 8% of green
light, and about 15% of blue light for the case of single solid Ag layer. Thus, this film is
fairly opaque to visible light. However, if original 40 nm film is sliced into four films each
about 10 nm in thickness, and space each Ag layer with approximately 110 nm of MgF2
then the total transmission of visible light increases to an average of 70%. Another similar

example is shown in figure 3, for longer periodicity and compared to 200nm thick silver
layer. Similar to the generic materials involving only dielectric materials the periodicity
determines the number of peaks/ valleys in the transmission coefficient. Also, increasing
the overall thickness reduces the transitivity of the material.

Figure 2. Transmission vs wavelength for a four-period PBG sample (solid line) and a solid silver film 40 nm
thick (dotted line). Silver layers are 10 nm thick, while the MgF2 layers are 110 nm thick. (Soukoulis, 1996)

Inherently, these structures could be used for shielding or other transparent circuits.
Figure 4 shows a plot for three layers of 30nm thick Ag layers staked between 140nm thick
MgF2 layers using Transmission Matrix Method (TMM) method and in Figure 5 using
drude model approximation, which hold the best for metals. It can be seen here though the
transmission properties are found to accurate the drude model fails to predict the
transmission occurring due to the plasma resonance of metals.
It was also shown in (Soukoulis, 1996) that it is also possible to use a combination of
two or more metals, or two or more types of dielectric or semiconductor materials within
the same structure, without any significant departure from the basic characteristics that we
have described. The frequency range where light is transmitted can be changed by either

increasing or decreasing the thickness of the magnesium fluoride layers. Increasing the
thickness of the dielectric material cause a shift of the band structure toward longer
wavelengths.

Figure 3. Same as Fig. 2, except that for the PBG sample MgF2 layers are 140nm thick, and the solid silver
film is 200 nm thick. (Soukoulis, 1996)

Figure 4 TMM- Transmission vs wavelength for a Ag/MgF2 PBG (solid line) and the continuous silver film
(dotted line) (Soukoulis, 1996)

Figure 5 Drude model - Transmission vs wavelength for a Ag/MgF2 PBG (solid line) and the continuous
silver film (dotted line) (Soukoulis, 1996)

The physical interpretation of this high transmission through these structures may
be explained using resonant enhanced tunnelling of Electromagnetic waves in periodic
structures similar to the electron tunneling effect through crystal lattice. The optical path of

the 40 nm silver film is only approximately

1000 where

is the wavelength of light

in silver. The introduction of a second metal layer, and hence additional boundary
conditions, can create the right set of circumstances that lead to a kind of induced
transparency such that the effective absorption coefficient inside the metal is also
suppressed. This suggests that boundary conditions cause a significant redefinition of skin
depth for metals. (Soukoulis, 1996)
In [3] it has been shown that the transitivity and the operational frequency can
further be optimized by using quasi periodic structures (Figure 6), for the results on
transitivity see [3]. Proposed applications for these structures include sensors, UV blocking

films, transparent electrodes for light-emitting polymer stacks, and conductive displays just
to name a few.

Figure 6 (a) Periodical multilayer, (b) 3-stage Cantor-like multilayer, (c) Fibonacci multilayer, (d) chirped
set

III.

Laminated Conductors at Low Frequency Power Transmission

We have seen in the previous section that 1-D layered metal-dielectric structure

could be used to make an electromagnetic wave penetrate(transmitted) more into metallic

medium before they are absorbed (lost) in the material due to its high conductivity. In this
section implementation of similar technique to power transmission lines is discussed based
on the literature given in []-[]. It is to be however noted that these techniques were

proposed in the 1950s and have well been in use even before they were applied to the high
optical frequency domain.
Unlike in optical frequencies where transmission through the material was of chief
importance, here the main focus is the improvement of the efficiency of the transmission
line itself. The loss in a conducting object is mainly governed by skin depth, which gives us
the measure of to what extent the fields penetrate into the conducting body and is given by
the equation[4]:

Where the symbols indicate their usual meanings. It can be seen here the skin depth gets
worse as the frequency of operation goes high. In [4] it was discovered that the skin depth
of a particular conductor could be increased to certain extent and the loss occurring due to
skin depth could be reduced.
In order to make a wave penetrate more into the medium the technique used by the
authors[4] is to fabricate conductors of many insulated laminae or filaments of conducting
material parallel to the flow of current, if the transverse dimension ie the thickness of the
conducting filaments are smaller than that of skin depth, at the frequency of operation the
waves will penetrate more into the conducting medium. Physically , the lateral change of
the wave through the conducting regions is cancelled by the insulating region. Figure 7
shows an example of this structure applied to a coaxial transmission line. The effective
dielectric constant for this structure is found to be:

Figure 7 Coaxial transmission line with laminated inner conductor

and when the phase velocity with which the wave travels inside the transmission line
becomes:

Maximum penetration of wave into the conductor is obtained. This velocity can be
achieved by having the dielectric constant is the coax to be:

The new skin depth thus obtained is larger and is given by:

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Figure 8 shows the attenuation constant of transmission lines with laminated inner
conductor and for single thick conductor. It is clear here that at the frequency of interest the
attenuation constant of the proposed conductor is linear and less than that of conventional
solid conductor.

Figure 8 Attenuation constant for laminated transmission line and solid conductor
Another example for transmission line with laminated conductors is shown in figure
9. These are parallel plate wave guides with solid walls and laminated walls respectively.
The comparison of attenuation for these two structures is shown in figure 10. Also the
effect of the dielectric constant of the space between the upper and lower walls on the
attenuation is shown in figure 11. It is clear here that the maximum penetration occurs only
at one specific dielectric constant which is obtained from the equation shown previously.
Further studies including mathematical theory, equivalent transmission line equations and
experimental demonstrations have been carried out in [] []. Figure 11 shows the
experimental structure used and the corresponding improvement in attenuation.

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Figure 10 Parallel plate wave guide with solid and laminated conducting walls

Figure 9 Attenuation in Solid walled parallel plate waveguide and laminated waveguide

Figure 10 Variation of attenuation ratio with dielectric constant of the waveguide.[4]

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Figure 11 Experimental results and fabricated structure []

IV.

Loss Reduction due to skin depth using Laminated Conductors at Microwave

frequencies.
Recently the concept discussed in the previous section has been applied to

microwave components like filters and resonators for their improvement in quality factor
by ohmic loss reduction. Some of these examples are explained in this section.

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In (Anders Eriksson, 2012) a circular disc microstrip resonator is constructed using

laminated conductors of sub-micron thickness. This is shown in figure 12.

Figure 12 Parallel Plate Resonator with laminated conductor walls (Anders Eriksson, 2012)

Figure 13 Skin Depth Enhancement using laminated conductors (Anders Eriksson, 2012)

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It was also shown in this paper that, in the calculation of resonant frequency the
boundary condition has to be modified. In figure 13 it can be seen that the wave penetrates
deeper into material only at resonant condition. Further the thicknesses of these structures
were also optimized to obtain the maximum possible Q by the authors. The modified
structure is shown in figure 14. In figure 15 it can be seen that with the increase in the
number of laminated conductors the surface resistance of the material decreased, and thus
improving the Q factor of the resonator. Resonant tunneling condition particularly follows
from the phase distribution in the system shown in Fig.14, where the inductive response of
the metal layers (-90 phase shift) is compensated by capacitive response (+90 phase shift)
of the dielectric layers. Phase matching - between different layers is observed for optimized
thickness of the sublayers. It is also clear here that there tunneling phenomenon is highly
resonant in nature.

Figure 14 optimized thickness for laminated conductors (Anders Eriksson, 2012)

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Figure 15 Surface resistance and Q factor variation with frequency and number of laminated conductors
(Anders Eriksson, 2012)

In (Jun Hattori, 1999) similar technique was applied to a filter design using cavity
resonators at 1.9 GHz. This construction of this filter is shown in figure 16.

Figure 16 Construction of band elimination filter (Jun Hattori, 1999)

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Figure 17 Surface resistance and Q improvement of Band Elimination filter using laminated conductors (Jun
Hattori, 1999)

Further in () an attempt has been made in the application of this technique to Antennas and
microstrip line through simulations. Figure 18 shows the antenna presented in it and the
low gain due to material losses. In table 1 it can be seen that the efficiency of the antenna
can be improved by using multiple layers of the order of skin depth. Figure 19 shows the
effect of laminating microstrip lines and there by improvement in its efficiency.
V.

Conclusion
In this report it one dimensional metallo dielectric materials was presented. It was

shown that both at optical and lower frequencies the electromagnetic waves can be made to
penetrate deeper into metal than in conventional solid conductor case. Applications of this
technique were also discussed showing superior performance in terms of transmission at
optical frequencies and ohmic loss at lower RF and microwave frequencies. With the
advancement of micro fabrication techniques one could extend the described method of
micron scale laminated conductors easily to lossy antennas and circuits where most of the
loss comes from the skin effect.
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VI.

References

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