Planar metamaterials: beyond negative index

Abstract

We will give a brief overview of our recent and ongoing research on a novel class of electromagnetic metamaterials exhibiting narrow high-Q resonances [1]. We will also introduce a concept of "incoherent" and "coherent" metamaterials [2], where narrow resonances are formed by correspondingly individual meta-molecules and collective coherent response of the entire ordered array of meta-molecules. We will draw parallels between the classical electromagnetic response of such metamaterials and well-established quantum effects such as electromagnetically induced transparency [3] and Mossbauer effect, and notice some remarkable similarity with a ferromagnetic phase transition in a two-dimensional Ising spin lattice. Several intriguing applications of this new class of artificial media will be discussed, in particular achieving considerable delays in propagation of electromagnetic pulses and building of a coherent source of electromagnetic radiation fuelled by plasmonic oscillations - the lasing spaser [4].

References
1. V. A. Fedotov, M. Rose, S. L. Prosvirnin, N. Papasimakis, and N. I. Zheludev, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 147401 (2007).
2. N. Papasimakis, V. A. Fedotov, Y. H. Fu, D. P. Tsai, and N. I. Zheludev, Coherent and incoherent metamaterials and the order-disorder transitions, arXiv.org 0809.2361v1 (2008).
3. N. Papasimakis, V. A. Fedotov, S. L. Prosvirnin, N. I. Zheludev, A metamaterial analog of electromagnetically induced transparency, arXiv.org 0801.1485v2 (2008).
4. N. I. Zheludev, S. L. Prosvirnin, N. Papasimakis, and V. A. Fedotov, Nature Photonics 2, 351 (2008).

4th National Workshop on Metamaterials and Special Materials for Electromagnetic Applications and TLC (MMSM'08) Naples 18-19 Dec (2008)