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Spoof plasmonics, which can enable strong terahertz (THz) radiation–matter interactions, hold great promise for the advancement of THz science and technology. However, THz spoof plasmonic devices based on micro-structured metals are in general limited by lithography-based fabrication processes as well as metals' mechanical, chemical, and thermal stability, which hinders their applications in, for instance, flexible and wearable THz imaging and communications, molecular sensing, etc. Possessing high electrical conductivity and outstanding mechanical robustness, graphene-assembled films (GAFs) promise many benefits for electronics as an alternative to metals. Here, by studying the resonance-enhanced transmission properties of subwavelength GAF hole arrays, we demonstrate a GAF metasurface as a transformative platform for flexible THz spoof plasmonics. Based on a laser direct writing (LDW) patterning technique, the proposed micro-engineered GAF is expected to pave the way toward large-area, durable, and inexpensive THz metadevices with superior flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrathin and two-dimensional (2D) metals can support strong plasmons, with concomitant tight field confinement and large field enhancement. Accordingly, 2D-metal nanostructures exhibiting plasmonic resonances are highly sensitive to the environment and intrinsically suitable for optical sensing. Here, based on a proof-of-concept numerical study, nano-engineered ultrathin 2D-metal films that support infrared plasmons are demonstrated to enable highly responsive refractive index (RI) sensing. For 3 nm-Au nanoribbons exhibiting plasmonic resonances at wavelengths around 1600 nm, a RI sensitivity of SRI > 650 nm per refractive index unit (RIU) is observed for a 100 nm-thick analyte layer. A parametric study of the 2D-Au system indicates the strong dependence of the RI sensitivity on the 2D-metal thickness. Furthermore, for an analyte layer as thin as 1 nm, a RI sensitivity up to 110 (90 nm/RIU) is observed in atomically thin 2D-In (2D-Ga) nanoribbons exhibiting highly localized plasmonic resonances at mid-infrared wavelengths. Our results not only reveal the extraordinary sensing characteristics of 2D-metal systems but also provide insight into the development of 2D-metal-based plasmonic devices for enhanced IR detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chiral metamaterials have attracted significant attention in recent years due to their unique properties in both the microwave and optics regimes. However, most existing works rely on engineering the desired properties of spatial interfaces, and the concept of time-varying chirality has only recently begun to be explored. As a consequence, there is currently a lack of suitable tools for evaluating the propagation of electromagnetic (EM) waves in time-varying chiral media. As such, this paper presents the theoretical formulation for temporal reflection and transmission of EM waves in time-varying chiral media using the temporal transfer matrix method (TTMM). The developed TTMM tool will then be utilized to explore several application examples including a structure with an arbitrary temporal profile, optical activity generated from time interfaces, and anti-reflection temporal coatings. In addition, we employ a specialized finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique, known as BI-FDTD, in all the scenarios to validate the proposed theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-wavelength chiral resonators formed from artificial structures exhibit exceedingly large chiroptical responses compared to those observed in natural media. Owing to resonant excitation, chiral near fields can be significantly enhanced for these resonators, holding great promise for developing enantioselective photonic components such as biochemical sensors based on circular dichroism (CD) and spin-dependent nonlinear imaging. In the present work, strong linear and nonlinear chiroptical responses (scattering CD > 0.15 and nonlinear differential CDs > 0.4) at visible and near infrared frequencies are reported for the first time for individual micrometer-scale plasmonic and dielectric helical structures. By leveraging dark-field spectroscopy and nonlinear optical microscopy, the circular-polarization-selective scattering behavior and nonlinear optical responses (e.g., second harmonic generation and two-photon photoluminescence) of 3D printed micro-helices with feature sizes comparable to the wavelength (total length is ∼5λ) are demonstrated. These micro-helices provide potential for readily accessible photonic platforms, facilitating an enantiomeric analysis of chiral materials. One such example is the opportunity to explore ultracompact photonic devices based on single, complex meta-atoms enabled by state-of-the-art 3D fabrication techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, a method for the generation of multimodal vortex waves carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) is proposed based on the transformation optics concept. The device is equally divided into eight sectors assigned by transformed material parameters, which are determined by solving Laplace's equation. Sectors with different phase variations from 0 to 2 π can be judiciously shuffled to generate vortex beams with different modes. Full wave numerical simulations are performed to validate multimodal OAM beam generation functionality and broadband performance of the proposed device. Such an implementation method opens the door to the application of vortex waves carrying OAM in communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resonant nature and geometric scalability make metamaterials an ideal platform for an enhanced light–matter interaction over a broad frequency range. The mid-infrared (IR) spectral range is of great importance for vibrational spectroscopy of molecules, while IR metamaterials created from lithography-based planar nanostructures have been used to demonstrate enhanced molecular detection. Compared with visible and near-infrared, the relative long wavelengths of IR light make it possible to achieve three-dimensional (3D) IR metamaterials via the state-of-the-art 3D fabrication techniques. Here, we design and fabricate a 3D printed plasmonic metamaterial absorber (MMA), and by performing Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy, we demonstrate that a series of molecular fingerprint vibrations of glycine can be significantly enhanced by the high absorption mode supported by the 3D meta-atoms of the MMA. The observed enhanced IR detection can also be partially attributed to the improved accessibility offered by the 3D architecture of the MMA. In particular, due to capillary forces during the drying process, the microscale 3D printed features lead to selective analyte deposition in high-field regions, which provides another degree of freedom in the design of the 3D printed structures for surface-enhanced IR detection. Our study shows the flexibility of metastructures based on advanced 3D printing technology in tailoring the interaction between IR light and materials on a subwavelength scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a method to retrieve the effective electromagnetic parameters of a slab of anisotropic metamaterial from reflection and transmission coefficients (or scattering parameters). In this retrieval method, calculated or measured scattering parameters are employed for plane waves incident obliquely on a metamaterial slab at different angles. Useful analytical expressions are derived for extracting the homogeneous anisotropic medium parameters of a metamaterial. To validate the method, the effective permittivity and permeability tensor parameters for a composite split-ring resonator-wire array are retrieved and shown to be consistent with observations previously reported in the literature. This retrieval method is further incorporated into a genetic algorithm (GA) to synthesize an infrared zero-index-metamaterial with a wide field-of-view, demonstrating the utility of the new design approach. The anisotropic parameter retrieval algorithm, when combined with a robust optimizer such as GA, can provide a powerful design tool for exploiting the anisotropic properties in metamaterials to achieve specific angle dependant or independent responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chiral mirrors are a class of metamaterials that reflect circularly polarized light of a certain helicity in a handedness-preserving manner, while absorbing circular polarization of the opposite handedness. However, most absorbing chiral mirrors operate only in a narrow frequency band, as limited by the causality principle. Instead of absorbing the undesired waveform, here we propose a transparent chiral mirror that allows undesired waves to pass through. In particular, the handedness-preserving band of the transparent chiral mirror is free of the causality limit, thus enabling broadband functionality. Furthermore, since electromagnetic waves outside the handedness-preserving band may transmit through the proposed chiral mirror, the reflected wave contains only circular polarization components of a certain handedness over a wide frequency range, which is favored in many applications. Moreover, the scheme is lossless and scalable. To realize the proposed transparent chiral mirror, we apply an array of helical microstructures in a two-dimensional square lattice. Traditionally, this kind of structure has been used as a circular polarizer but we apply it instead in a reflective mode. Our work provides a bandwidth analysis of chiral mirrors, and paves the way to new opportunities for creating broadband chiral metamaterials with handedness-preserving properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resonance based strong light-matter interaction in metamaterials offers unprecedented opportunities to manipulate polarization of electromagnetic waves. In this work, we fabricate a three-dimensional (3D) metamaterial consisting of 90°-twisted split-tube resonators using a 3D printing technique and demonstrate the corresponding asymmetric transmission for linearly polarized electromagnetic waves in the Ku band with near-unity polarization conversion efficiency. Experimental results reveal a 90° polarization rotation and an incident polarization angle dependent asymmetric transmission at a frequency around 15.2 GHz. The experimental results are in good agreement with simulations. Possessing the merits of both flexibility of response tailoring and ease of fabrication, the proposed 3D-printed metamaterials have great potential for compact polarization-control devices exhibiting unidirectional transmission at both microwave and terahertz frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, HT ht needs to be corrected to HT ht for the correct expression of the electric fields in time. Erratum: "A generalized temporal transfer matrix and its application to modeling electromagnetic waves in time-varying chiral media" [Appl. Phys. [Extracted from the article]

We report an all-dielectric lossless optical mirror for the realization of controllable reflection phase based on an array of isolated dielectric nanoresonators. This dielectric mirror is comprised of a crosss-shaped amorphous silicon nanoresonator array that has been designed to achieve a 99.8% reflectivity and zero reflection phase at the wavelength of 0.99 μm. The measured results from the fabricated sample match the theoretical predictions with 99.5% reflectivity and near-zero degree reflection phase at 1μlm, which is very close to the targeted wavelength. This concept and approach pave the way for synthesizing lossless artificial reflecting electromagnetic boundaries with arbitrary phase response and hold great promise in applications ranging from nanocavities to nanowaveguides and nanoantennas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on substrate-induced bianisotropy in an impedance-matched near-zero-index metallodielectric fishnet nanostructure with vertical sidewalls and a supporting substrate. The effect of bianisotropy on the metamaterial optical properties is confirmed through spectral holography measurements and full-wave electromagnetic simulations, showing asymmetric reflection coefficients from opposite sides of the structure at normal incidence. The non-zero magnetoelectric coupling parameter causes a 0.03 μm shift in the near-infrared zero-index band centered at 1.5 μm and a 38% reduction in transmitted power. The substrate-induced bianisotropy is due to the excitation of an anti-symmetric plasmonic resonance mode identified by comparing simulations of the current distributions on free-standing and substrate-mounted fishnet structures. This experimental demonstration of substrate-induced bianisotropy verifies the previously proposed theory and provides valuable guidance for future plasmonic and metamaterial nanostructures that include substrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient technique is developed to fabricate optically thin metallic films with subwavelength patterns and their complements simultaneously. By comparing the spectra of the complementary films, we show that Babinet's principle nearly holds for these structures in the optical domain. Rigorous full-wave simulations are employed to verify the experimental observations. It is further demonstrated that a discrete-dipole approximation can qualitatively describe the spectral dependence of the metallic membranes on the geometry of the constituent particles as well as the illuminating polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose to implement a nonmetallic low-loss cloak for the infrared range from identical chalcogenide glass resonators. Based on transformation optics for cylindrical objects, our approach does not require metamaterial response to be homogeneous and accounts for the discrete nature of elementary responses governed by resonator shape, illumination angle, and inter-resonator coupling. Air fractions are employed to obtain the desired distribution of the cloak effective parameters. The effect of cloaking is verified by full-wave simulations of the true multiresonator structure. The feasibility of cloak fabrication is demonstrated by prototyping glass grating structures with the dimensions characteristic for the cloak resonators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a dielectric frequency selective surface filter with an angularly tolerant, polarization independent stop band designed at a midinfrared wavelength of 3.0 μm. The structure, consisting of a doubly-periodic amorphous silicon grating supported by a polyimide membrane, was optimized using a genetic algorithm to have a transmission stop band with a 3.33% 10 dB bandwidth for incidence angles as large as 10° from normal. The measured properties of the fabricated filter were within 1% of theoretical predictions. This strategy provides a practical and efficient approach to creating advanced dielectric filters for highly customized infrared optical device and coating applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method of using memristors as passive electromagnetic switches is demonstrated via full-wave finite-difference time-domain simulations. A memristor is a fundamental circuit element that directly links flux and charge. These circuit elements exhibit a resistive memory effect, which results from a frequency dependent hysteresis. Therefore a memristor can be used as a resistive switch whose resistance varies under low frequency excitation but is unchanged at high frequencies. Utilizing this property, a passive reconfigurable band-pass frequency selective surface that is switched via space waves was designed and simulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a design and fabrication strategy for creating single-layer metallodielectric nanostructures with dual-band filtering properties at midinfrared wavelengths. Genetic algorithm optimization was used to determine an arrangement of nanometer-scale metal pixels within one unit cell of a two-dimensional periodic array that best satisfied the user-specified filter response and nanofabrication design rule constraints. Infrared transmission and reflection spectra measured on an optimized nanostructure array had two narrow stop bands blueshifted by 0.2 μm from the designed center wavelengths of 3.3 and 4.1 μm, with transmission attenuation greater than -20 dB and reflection attenuation less than -1.5 dB in each band. This strategy provides a practical and efficient approach to design metallodielectric nanostructures needed for photonic device applications as well as for future low-loss refractive index engineered metamaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two-dimensional electromagnetic cloak recipe having a uniform thickness is presented for cloaked regions of elliptic cylindrical shape. The cloak material parameters are obtained from the spatial transformation approach. The effectiveness of the cloak design is verified by full-wave simulations of plane wave scattering from uncloaked and cloaked conducting elliptic cylinders. The proposed design provides a more practical cloak geometry when compared to previous designs that have the outer boundary limited only to a scaled version of the inner boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is proposed that electromagnetic cloaks be used as effective shielding devices which enable improved antenna performance in highly scattering, multiple-antenna environments. In multiple frequency, multiple-antenna environments, each antenna is enclosed in a dispersive cloak that is designed to operate at the transmitting frequencies of the neighboring antennas. The loading effect of large objects in close proximity to a radiating antenna can be removed by enclosing the scatterer with a cloak. Application of cloaks to microwave antenna shielding only requires narrow band performance, which can be realized using currently available metamaterials technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A spatial transformation technique is applied to an important class of two-dimensional electromagnetic cloaks that do not possess rotational symmetry around the longitudinal axis. These cloaks are based on an eccentric elliptic annular geometry, which represents a generalization of previously published cloaking configurations. The required material properties of the cloak are derived in terms of the geometrical parameters and the coordinates in the transformed system. The validity of the cloak parameters is verified by a full-wave finite-element simulation of plane wave scattering from uncloaked and cloaked perfectly conducting cylinders with elliptic cross section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A full-wave analysis technique based on the finite element-boundary integral method is developed and used to rigorously treat the scattering from periodically structured metamaterials incorporating anisotropic liquid crystals (LCs) and dispersive materials. Reconfiguration of the negative-index metamaterials is achieved by controlling the magnetic resonance via tuning permittivity of the embedded anisotropic LCs. Numerical results show that the refractive index of the metamaterials can be reconfigured by tuning the director orientation of anisotropic LCs or by using temperature-dependent LCs. The design configurations and their characteristics in the near- and the mid-infrared ranges are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallodielectric photonic crystals (MDPCs) consisting of a planar periodic array of metallic patch elements designed by genetic algorithm (GA) optimization were patterned on flexible dielectric substrates and exhibit strong mid- and far-infrared (IR) dual-band response. The GA uses biological principles of natural selection to evolve nonintuitive geometries by optimizing the MDPC scattering response based on a user-defined fitness function. The transmission spectra measured on two different MDPCs optimized for optically thin and thick substrates have two strong stop bands with attenuation greater than 10 dB, which agree well with those predicted by full-wave periodic method of moments (PMM) modeling. This versatile GA optimization approach will facilitate design of scaled mid- and near-IR MDPCs with user-defined scattering response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metallodielectric photonic crystals (MDPCs) consisting of periodic arrays of self-similar two-stage fractal patch metallic elements patterned on thin dielectric substrates are shown to exhibit excellent mid- and far-infrared dual-band response in a single layer structure. This was achieved by optimizing the element size and interelement spacing of cross-dipole and square-patch fractal elements using full-wave periodic method of moments modeling techniques that calculate electromagnetic scattering from the MDPC surface and are able to account for material loss and loading effects. All structures fabricated based on these designs had two measured stopbands with greater than 10 dB attenuation positioned at wavelengths determined by element geometry and size as well as interelement spacing. This simple single layer fractal MDPC geometry will facilitate further scaling into the near-IR wavelength regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]