University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Development of a Passive Negative Index Metamaterial in the Visible Spectrum

Young, Michael C.

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Description

Title
Development of a Passive Negative Index Metamaterial in the Visible Spectrum
Author(s)
Young, Michael C.
Contributor(s)
Kim, Kyekyoon K.
Issue Date
2015-05
Keyword(s)
  • Metamaterial
  • Negative Refractive Index
  • Mie Theory
  • Nanospheres
  • FDTD
Abstract
A metamaterial is an artificial material structured for the purpose of altering electromagnetic wave behavior in ways that are not typically found in nature. We seek to investigate specific material structures that will reverse the refractive index of visible light to produce negative index metamaterials (NIM). Fundamentally, metamaterial research has the capability of affecting any usage of electromagnetic waves, and the potential applications of NIMs are limitless: superlenses, invisibility cloaks, sensor detection, antennas, etc. To achieve the desired behavior, we design and simulate metamaterial structures using Lumerical FDTD Solutions. In addition to using finite-difference time-domain simulations, we verify and validate this work with another simulation technique, Discontinuous Galerkin Time-Domain (DGTD), created at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. The structure of particular interest to our group consists of hexagonally close-packed monolayers of dielectric-nanospheres supplemented with metal thin films. Dependent on the sphere diameters, certain wavelengths of visible light produce Mie resonance in the dielectric-nanosphere monolayer resulting in a negative permeability. In addition, a thin film of metal produces negative permittivity throughout the entire visible spectrum. Theoretically, the two responses combined will generate desirable NIM behavior. Different structures based on this design will be proposed for possible future work and fabrication. In addition, techniques and efforts in producing and testing these structures experimentally will be described.
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/79052

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