Abstract
An indefinite permittivity medium (IPM) has been fabricated and optically characterized in mid-infrared spectral range (10.7 µm-11.3 µm). Phase and amplitude transmission measurements reveal two remarkable properties of IPMs: (i) transmission of sub-diffraction waves (as short as λ/4) can exceed those of diffraction-limited ones, and (ii) sub-diffraction waves can propagate with negative refractive index. We describe a novel double-detector optical technique relying on the interference between sub-diffraction and diffraction-limited waves for accurate measurement of the transmission amplitude and phase of the former.
Highlights
Indefinite permittivity media (IPMs) [1], sometimes called “hyperbolic metamaterials” [2,3,4,5], are artificial materials that possess an anisotropic dielectric tensor which is indefinite [1]
If the period of the diagnostic grating is slightly different from the object grating (d1 d2), each mth sub-diffraction mode scattered by the nth order diffractive scattering on the DG is “released” into the far field into its unique angular direction θmn given by sin mn
indefinite permittivity medium (IPM) are promising for a variety of near-field applications that rely on sub-diffraction optical waves
Summary
Indefinite permittivity media (IPMs) [1], sometimes called “hyperbolic metamaterials” [2,3,4,5], are artificial materials that possess an anisotropic dielectric tensor which is indefinite (it possesses both positive and negative eigenvalues) [1]. The purpose of this paper is to understand the amplitude and phase characteristics of radiation propagating through indefinite permittivity materials, with the special emphasis on sub-diffraction wave propagation This includes the first experimental demonstration of the anti-cutoff [13] phenomenon and the negative index of the sub-diffraction waves propagating under the anticutoff condition. In the rest of the paper we describe the results of measuring amplitude and phase characteristics of both sub-diffraction and diffraction-limited waves launched into a multilayer IPM consisting of materials with positive and negative dielectric permittivities. We conjecture that this change of the phase difference at the superlensing wavelength explains the sign change of the phase contrast in the recent superlensing experiments [14]
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