Experimental verification of the inverse Doppler effect in negative-index material

Abstract

μResearch of negative-index material (NIM) is a very hot developing research field in recent years. NIM is also called left-handed material (LHM), in which the electric field [see manuscript], the magnetic field [see manuscript] and the wave vector [see manuscript] are not composed of a set of right-handed coordinates but a set of left-handed coordinates. Thus the action of electromagnetic waves in both left-handed material and right-handed material is just the opposite, for instance, the negative refraction phenomenon, the inverse Doppler effect and so on. Here we report the explicit result of the inverse Doppler effect through a photonic crystal (PC) prism at 10.6m wavelength for the first time, and the result we get from the experiment is much similar to the theoretical analysis we have deduced before. During the experiment, the CO₂ laser is used as a light source, and the PC prism is used as a sample, which can move a tiny distance (1mm) uniformly with a translating stage. Based on the method of optical heterodyne, we let the emergent light from the output surface of PC prism and the reference light from light source interfere at the surface of the detector. When the translating stage moves towards the detector, the optical paths in the PC prism will be changed, and then the Doppler frequency shift will be generated. Though several different samples have been tested repeatedly, the results we get are extraordinarily similar. So we can be sure that the inverse Doppler effect really exists in the NIM at optical frequencies. To our best knowledge, this is the only experimental verification of the inverse Doppler effect in the NIM at optical frequencies at home and aboard.