SURFACE PLASMONS IN COAXIAL METAMATERIAL CABLES

Abstract

Thanks to Victor Veselago for his hypothesis of negative index of refraction, meta-materials — engineered composites — can be designed to have properties difficult or impossible to find in nature: they can have both electrical permittivity (ϵ) and magnetic permeability (μ) simultaneously negative. The metamaterials — henceforth negative-index materials (NIMs) — owe their properties to subwavelength structure rather than to their chemical composition. The tailored electromagnetic response of the NIMs has had a dramatic impact on classical optics: they are becoming known to have changed many basic notions related with electromagnetism. The present article is focused on gathering and reviewing fundamental characteristics of plasmon propagation in coaxial cables fabricated of the right-handed medium (RHM) (with ϵ > 0, μ > 0) and the left-handed medium (LHM) (with ϵ < 0, μ < 0) in alternate shells starting from the innermost cable. Such structures as conceived here may pave the way to some interesting effects in relation to, for example, optical science exploiting the cylindrical symmetry of coaxial waveguides that make it possible to perform all major functions of an optical fiber communication system in which the light is born, manipulated, and transmitted without ever leaving the fiber environment, with precise control over the polarization rotation and pulse broadening. This review also covers briefly the nomenclature, classification, potential applications, and the limitations (related, for example, to the inherent losses) of the NIMs and their impact on classical electrodynamics in general, and in designing the cloaking devices in particular. A recent surge in efforts on invisibility and the cloaking devices seems to have spoiled the researchers worldwide: proposals include not only a way to hide an object without having to wrap the cloak around it, but also to replace a given object with another, thus adding to the deception even further! All this is attributed as much to the fundamental as to the practical advances made in the fabrication and characterization of NIMs. The article concludes briefly addressing the anticipated implications of plasmon observation in the multicoaxial cables and suggesting future dimensions worth adding to the problem. The background provided is believed to make less formidable the task of future writers of reviews in this field.