Related papers: Fundamental limits to the refractive index of tran…
The recent advance in the assembly of metallic nanoparticles (NPs) has enabled sophisticated engineering of unprecedented light-matter interaction at the optical domain. In this work, I expand the design flexibility of NP optical…
Photonic devices depend critically on the dielectric materials from which they are made, with higher refractive indices and lower absorption losses enabling new functionalities and higher performance. However, these two material properties…
All known optical materials have an index of refraction of order unity. Despite the tremendous implications that an ultrahigh index could have for optical technologies, little research has been done on why the refractive index of materials…
It is interesting to observe that all optical materials with a positive refractive index have a value of index that is of order unity. Surprisingly, though, a deep understanding of the mechanisms that lead to this universal behavior seems…
Materials combining both a high refractive index and a wide band gap are of great interest for optoelectronic and sensor applications. However, these two properties are typically described by an inverse correlation with high refractive…
Perfect lensing and cloaking based on complementary media are possible applications of negative refractive index materials. Metamaterials represent the natural candidates to realize such property by tailoring the effective dielectric…
The set of realizable refractive indices as a function of frequency is considered. For passive media we give bounds for the refractive index variation in a finite bandwidth. Special attention is given to the loss and index variation in the…
We establish simple quantitative criterium for the search of new dielectric materials with high values of the refractive index in the visible range. It is demonstrated, that for light frequencies below the band gap the latter is determined…
For a number of optical applications, it is advantageous to precisely tune the refractive index of a liquid. Here, we harness a well-established concept in optics for this purpose. The Kramers-Kronig relation provides physical connection…
We derive an approach to define the causal direction of the wavevector of modes in optical metamaterials, which in turn, determines signs of refractive index and impedance as a function of {\it real and imaginary} parts of dielectric…
A key optical parameter characterizing the existence of negative refraction in a thin layer of a composite material is the effective refractive index of an equivalent, homogenized layer with the same physical thickness as the initial…
The race to engineering metamaterials comprising of a negative refractive index in the optical range has been fueled by the realization of negative index materials for GHz frequencies six years ago. Sheer miniaturization of the GHz resonant…
Past work has considered the analytic properties of the reflection coefficient for a metal-backed slab. The primary result established a fundamental relationship for the minimal layer thickness to bandwidth ratio achievable for an absorber.…
Sub-wavelength diffractive optics, commonly known as metasurfaces, have recently garnered significant attention for their ability to create ultra-thin flat lenses with extremely short focal lengths. Several materials with different…
Negative refraction is known to occur in materials that simultaneously possess a negative electric permittivity and magnetic permeability; hence they are termed negative index materials. However, there are no known natural materials that…
We demonstrate a metamaterial that cannot be described by a single set of refractive-index and impedance values, even for fixed frequency and polarization. The metamaterial structure is a stack of dissimilar waveguides with subwavelength…
The paper considers an opportunity for the creation of an artificial two-component metamaterial with a negative refractive index within the radio and optical frequency band, which possesses a spatial dispersion. It is shown that there…
The usual procedures to extract effective refractive indices for negative-index metamaterials are complicated by branching ambiguities in the inverse cosine function. The existing methods to eliminate ambiguities either involve calculations…
Conventional transparent materials at optical frequencies have refractive index values (n) greater than unity -- most commonly between about 1 and 4. This paper explores optical phenomena made possible by using materials with refractive…
Achieving zero backward scattering (ZBS) and zero forward scattering (ZFS), i.e., the so-called the first and second Kerker's conditions respectively, by sphere spherical particles is considered to be impossible due to the unavailability of…