Design of a Hyperbolic Metamaterial as a Waveguide for Low-Loss Propagation of Plasmonic Wave

Ya-Chen Chang,Yi-Jun Jen,Teh-Li Chan,Cheng-Chung Lee,Wei-Chieh Ma

doi:10.3390/sym13020291

Ya-Chen Chang, Yi-Jun Jen + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13020291

Copy DOI

Abstract

A stratiform hyperbolic metamaterial comprises multiple units of symmetrical metal-dielectric film, stacked to have a precisely equivalent refractive index, admittance, and iso-frequency curve. A metamaterial that is composed of stacks of symmetrical films as a waveguide to couple a diffracted wave into a horizontally propagating plasmonic wave is designed herein. By tuning the parameters of the constituent thin films within a hyperbolic metamaterial, both the loss of the plasmonic wave and admittance matching are minimized and optimized, respectively.

Highlights

Optical metamaterials are artificial subwavelength structures with extraordinary light– matter interaction properties that are not exhibited by natural materials [1]
Hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) is an anisotropic material that has been widely studied owing to its unique hyperbolic dispersion [2]
The sign of the tangential permittivity opposes that of the vertical permittivity for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization mode

Summary

Introduction

Optical metamaterials are artificial subwavelength structures with extraordinary light– matter interaction properties that are not exhibited by natural materials [1]. Hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) is an anisotropic material that has been widely studied owing to its unique hyperbolic dispersion [2]. The sign of the tangential permittivity opposes that of the vertical permittivity for transverse magnetic (TM) polarization mode. The iso-frequency curves (IFCs) of HMMs can be classified into two types by the signs of the tangential permittivity and the vertical permittivity. Type-I HMMs support the propagation of electromagnetic waves with both small and large wave vectors. Type-II HMMs support propagation only for electromagnetic waves with large wave vectors [4]. The unusual hyperbolic dispersion can be used in subwavelength diffraction-limited optical imaging [5,6,7,8], broadband optical absorption [9,10,11], high-resolution nanolithography [12,13,14,15], and spontaneous emission engineering [16]

Methods

Results

Conclusion