Reflection of Light from a Layer of a Hyperbolic Metamaterial

Abstract

We have investigated specific features of reflection of a plane elliptically polarized electromagnetic wave that is incident from an isotropic nonabsorbing medium onto a plane-parallel layer of a hyperbolic metamaterial the optical axis of which is parallel to the interface, while the diagonal values of the dielectric permittivity are smaller than the dielectric permittivity of the isotropic medium. Depending on the angle of incidence and the angle between the plane of incidence and the optical axis of the hyperbolic metamaterial, regimes are possible in which either an ordinary wave or an extraordinary wave, or both waves decay outward from the interface, and, in the latter case, for some values of these angles, the decay may be nonexponential. For these three regimes, the reflection coefficient from a layer of an ITO/Ag nanostructure has been calculated numerically. Upon variation in the polarization of the incident wave, the energy reflection coefficient changes from minimum to maximum values, which depend on the layer thickness. As distinct from conventional anisotropic media, in all cases, the maximum value of the reflection coefficient tends to unity with increasing layer thickness. If the amplitude of an ordinary or extraordinary wave does not decrease outward from the interface boundary, the minimal reflection coefficient periodically turns to zero with increasing layer thickness due to interference. In the case in which both waves decay, with this decay being nonexponential under certain incidence conditions, the minimum reflection coefficient turns to zero at a certain layer thickness, and then tends to unity.