Waseem A Al Luhaybi

Negative Index Of Refraction and Metamaterials

Introduction Refractive index is a dimensionless number that describes the interaction between material and light. Refractive index or Index of refraction describe how a light propagates in a material and how light get reflected by a material on its surface. The unity of index of refraction is demonstrated by vacuum. However, in a material, the refractive index increases due to the interaction between atoms in the material and the electromagnetic field of light. The value of Index of Refraction varies from a material to another. Therefore, all materials that are existed in nature are occurred to have index of refraction that is greater than 1. On other words, all materials have positive index of refraction. The question that may be brought up to the table is that whether we could have a material with negative index of refraction. This question was wondered in 1904 by Schuster. In 1968, Veselago proposed in his paper- -the electrodynamics of substances with simultaneously negative values of permittivity and permeability- that a material might have negative index of refraction if it has negative values of permittivity and permeability (Veselago, 1964). From that time till 2000 the idea of having negative index of refraction materials was kind of imagination. In 2000, Pendry, who is the pioneer of matamaterials, proposed that it is possible to create a superlens that could focus light to a small spot. Furthermore, Nanotechnology has paved the way for fabricating an artificial material that could
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Waseem A Al Luhaybi

have negative index of refraction. Thus, metamaterials have been exploited and developed in making novel devices. Negative Index Of Refraction Index of refraction ( ) can be defined as a ratio of the speed of light in the vacuum ( ) to speed of light in the material ( ) as the following: (1)

However, index of refraction can be related to the relative permittivity ( ) and relative permeability ( ) of the material by using Maxwells equation as follows: Where are defined by: (3) And (4) Where D is the electric displacement, E is the electric field, B is the magnetic field, and H is the magnetic field strength. It has been assumed that refraction of index always has a value that is either equal or greater than one because most natural materials have positive values of index of refraction is found by taking the positive root of this which is metals. Metals have negative . As a result, the value of (2)

. However, there is an exception to

due to the large density of free electrons. As a

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Waseem A Al Luhaybi

consequence, the imaginary part of refraction of index has to be introduced and that leads to have decaying waves instead of propagating waves. The index refraction is considered to be real if both are negative and the material

support propagating waves. If we consider a plane wave in a material, Maxwells equations can be written as (5) And (6) In positive index materials-the values of and , are positive, the K, E, and H vectors form a

right-handed set. On other hand, in negative index materials these values form left-handed set. As a result, the wave vector (K) which represents the direction of propagation of phase front and the poynting vector that represents the direction of energy flow- which is given by: (7)

are antiparallel. On other words, the wave vectors (K) has an opposite direction to the energy flow. Furthermore, the rate of energy flow is connected to the group velocity ( ) of electromagnetic wave and the phase velocity ( ) represents the magnitude of wave vector.

Therefore in negative index materials, the phase velocity and the group velocity have opposite signs and the phase fronts move backward with respect to the direction of energy (See figure 1).

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Waseem A Al Luhaybi

Superlenses Generally, in optics, an image is constructed by only capturing the propagating waves. Any information that evanescent waves carry will be lost due to the exponentially decaying of them. In 2000, Pendry suggested that a slab of metmaterial can focus light by using propagating and evanescent waves leading to spatial resolution below the wave length (Pendry, 2007). A simple Fourier analysis demonstrates that the evanescent waves convey information on a length that is smaller than the wavelength of light. Therefore, the constructed image in conventional optics is losing any details that are smaller than the wavelength. What Pendry suggested is that by using a slab of metamaterial can switch the exponentially decaying wave to an exponentially increasing wave. By the contribution of evanescent waves, the reconstructed image will achieve super- resolution, by providing subwavelenght scale information, and thats why it is called a superlens (see figure .2). However, the operation of a superlens is generally limited to the near-field region which means that both the object and the image must be in close proximity to the lens itself. This is due to the idea that the evanescent waves decay exponentially outside the superlens. Therefore, they cannot convey information much farther than the wavelength. As a result, far-field operation needs specific mechanism that can convert the evanescent waves to propagating waves without losing details. Scientists try to achieve far-field region by using grating coupler or using a multilayer of superlenses in cylindrical geometry. The second approach is called a hyperlens which is composed of a multilayer of sliver and Aluminum oxide ( Type of Metamaterials: As has been mentioned before, having negative index materials requires the permittivity and the permeability to be both negative. The nature has given to us materials with negative
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permittivity which are metals at frequency below their plasma frequencies. On other hand, negative permeability requires a strong magnetic resonance in the material which is much more difficult. Thus, that needs artificial structures that produce a magnetic response at high frequency. Consequently, Pendry et al. suggested split-ring and Swiss-roll structure (Pendry, 2007). 1) Split rings Split rings have become widely investigated structure for magnetic resonance. There are several designs of split rings that scientists have been proposed lately. The most prevailing design of split rings is composed of two concentric copper rings with splits that are in opposite sides and the separation between the outer and the inner rings is smaller than their radii (see figure.3). The current are created by magnetic field of the light incidence. Even though the current cannot pass throughout the ring because of the split, the current is capacitively coupled to other side of the ring. Therefore, it leads to a resonant behavior in permeability. To avoid cross complex polarization, scientists modified the design by adding a thin dielectric layer between the two identical split rings. However, with that design, some problems still exist. Most metals increase loss in the visible range and, therefore, have weak magnetic resonance. The most successful design is a pair of metal nanorods that can produce a magnetic resonance. Using this design, a -0.3 refractive index was demonstrated in an array of gold nanorod pairs that fabricated by electron beam lithography (Park & Kim, 2008). 2) Photonic Crystal Photonic crystal is a material with periodic refractive index profile and has a band gap that controls the light to propagate in certain frequency. Photonic crystal is another method to
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obtain metamaterials throughout Bragg resonance. There are two mechanisms that photonic crystal has to act as metamaterials. Firstly, photonic crystal has a positive refractive index but because of the negative curvature of the dispersion surface, it shows negative refraction. Thus, the poynting vector(S) and the phase point (K) have huge vector difference from each other which indicates the sign of metamaterials property (Smith, Pendry & Wiltshire, 2004). The second method is that photonic crystal demonstrates an isotropic dispersion surface with a negative gradient. Photonic crystal is exploited in making superlenses in both methods (Park & Kim, 2008). Conclusion The fabrication of metamaterials requires accurate synthesis and pattering of nanomaterial. Thus, the developing of metamaterials depends greatly on material science. Metamaterials could lead us to investigate the material with flexibility. One of the promising applications that metamaterials plays a main role on is inventing Cloak devices Where the light is bended when it strikes the object and comes back together again after that showing that as there was no object aborts it. Metamaterials inspire many scientists to dive into atoms and discover many applications that could make our life better.

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References: Smith, D. R., Pendry, J. B., & Wiltshire, M. C. K. (2004). Metamaterials and negative refractive index.SCIENCE, 305, 788-792. Park, W., & Kim, J. (2008). Negative-index materials: Optics by design. MRS BULLETIN, 33(10), 907-913. Pendry, J. B. (2007). Metamaterials and the control of electromagnetic fields. Optical Society of America, 1-11. Veselago, V. G. (1964). the electrodynamics of substances with simultaneously negative values of and .SOVIET PHYSICS, 10(4), 509-514.

List of figures:
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1)

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/305/5685/788/F2.large .jpg

2)

http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v295/n1/images/scientifica merican0706-60-I4.jpg

3)

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http://www.ee.washington.edu/research/ersl/ResearchLinks/Researc hImages/meta2.jpg

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