Nicolae C. Panoiu | Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics,
Columbia University

Thursday February 15, 4:30 PM | Research 1 Room 301

Computational Studies of Photonic Nanostructures: Negative Index Metamaterials and Nonlinear Photonic Crystals

The prediction that in specific circumstances a certain class of metamaterials, known as negative-index metamaterials (NIM), have a negative index of refraction has recently generated remarkable scientific interest. First introduced as homogeneous electromagnetic media with negative electric permittivity and negative magnetic permeability, and therefore a negative index of refraction, NIMs possess unique optical properties, such as deep sub-wavelength resolution (superlensing), refraction governed by an inverted Snell law, negative light pressure, or reversal of Cherenkov radiation and Doppler shift. The talk will review recent results regarding optical properties of such metamaterials at near-infrared frequencies, which is the frequency region of most interest for technological applications. Thus, by means of ab-initio numerical simulations employing 2D and 3D implementations of the transfer matrix method and the finite-difference time-domain algorithm I will demonstrate that certain metallo-dielectric nanostructures have a negative index of refraction at near-infrared frequencies. In addition, these computational studies confirm that one can employ 3D photonic crystal nanostructures to achieve superlensing. In the second part of my talk I will show that, unlike the case of regular optical media, one can employ the intrinsic optical nonlinearity of the underlying materials to strongly engineer optical properties of photonic crystal nanostructures. Comparisons between these numerical studies and recent experiments will also be presented.

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