Cloaking Devices: From the Page of

Science Fiction to a Laboratory Near You

(Not Yet on Starships)

MSE 515 Presentation

Caleb Corolewski
12/03/13
Bending Light - Refraction

Snell’s Law for Refraction

2
Negative Refraction and Cloaking
● n, can be written in terms of the wave vector, k

Ref. 2

3
Optical Metamaterials: A+B=C
● Metamaterial: Artificially engineered at the microscopic
scale to produce macroscopic properties

● The wavelength must be larger than the microscopic

structures

● Negative Refraction Metamaterials (NRM) are created

by combining two sublattices, one with negative
dielectric, the other magnetic constants. (A+B=C) 4
A) Negative Dielectric Permittivity
● Metals have negative Dielectric constants for visible and
below frequencies
○ Anisotropic response to an applied E field

● From our textbook:

5
A) Negative Dielectric Permittivity
● Wire Mesh Lattices
○ Provides 2D and 3D isotropic response to E fields
○ Requires that lambda>a>r

Ref. 3

2D Wire Mesh 3D Wire Mesh 6

B) Negative Magnetic Permeability
● Negative magnetic permeability does not occur in
nature
○ Negative susceptibility does

● J.B. Pendry demonstrated a negative

permeability metamaterial in 1999.
○ Under AC magnetic fields, these
structure act as an LC circuit
Ref. 6

7
B) Negative Magnetic Permeability
● Solvable using simple circuit
analysis
● Kirchoff’s Loop Laws

● Balancing Lorentz EMF

Real Imaginary

Ref. 3 8
A+B=C) Negative Refraction
● In 2000 Smith et al. Combined the wire mesh lattice with
Pendry’s Split Ring Resonator

● The first NRM!

● All NRMs since then

use the same basic
sublattices
Ref. 8 9
Proof of Negative Refraction
● This NRM operates at microwave frequencies

● Refraction was measured for Teflon and the NRM

○ Collected the angle from the surface normal

Ref. 7 10
Microwave Regime Cloak

Ref. 9
11
Questions?
References
1. Schwartz, Melvin. Principles of Electrodynamics. New York: Dover Publications, 1987.
2. Pendry, J.B. Controlling Electromagnetic Fields. Science, Vol 312, June 2006.
3. Ramakrishna S. Physics of Negative Refractive Index Materials. Reports Prog. Phys. Vol 68, 2005.
4. Smith D. R., Padilla, Vier, Nemat-Nasser, Schultz. Composite Medium with Simultaneously Negative Permeability
and Permittivity. Phys. Rev. Let. Vol 84. 2000.
5. Solymar L., and Walsh D. Electrical Properties of Materials. 8th. Oxford 2010.
6. Pendry J. B. Magnetism from Conductors and Enhanced Nonlinear Phenomena. IEEE Transactions Vol 47, 1999.
7. Shelby R. A., Smith D. R., and Schultz. Experimental Verification of a Negative Index of Refraction. Science, Vol 292,
2001.
8. Pendry, J.B. Negative Refraction. Cont. Phys. Vol 45, 2004. (used for HD image).
9. Schurig, D., Mock, Justice, Cummer, Pendry, Starr, Smith. Metamaterial Electromagnetic Cloak at Microwave
Frequencies. Science Vol 314, 2006.