We experimentally demonstrate a perfect plasmonic absorber at λ = 1.6 μm. Its polarization-independent absorbance is 99% at normal incidence and remains very high over a wide angular range of incidence around ±80°. We introduce a novel concept to utilize this perfect absorber as plasmonic sensor for refractive index sensing. This sensing strategy offers great potential to maintain the performance of localized surface plasmon sensors even in nonlaboratory environments due to its simple and robust measurement scheme.

Infrared Perfect Absorber and Its Application As Plasmonic Sensor

Metamaterials are typically engineered by arranging a set of small scatterers or apertures in a regular array throughout a region of space, thus obtaining some desirable bulk electromagnetic behavior. The desired property is often one that is not normally found naturally (negative refractive index, near-zero index, etc.). Over the past ten years, metamaterials have moved from being simply a theoretical concept to a field with developed and marketed applications. Three-dimensional metamaterials can be extended by arranging electrically small scatterers or holes into a two-dimensional pattern at a surface or interface. This surface version of a metamaterial has been given the name metasurface (the term metafilm has also been employed for certain structures). For many applications, metasurfaces can be used in place of metamaterials. Metasurfaces have the advantage of taking up less physical space than do full three-dimensional metamaterial structures; consequently, metasurfaces offer the possibility of less-lossy structures. In this overview paper, we discuss the theoretical basis by which metasurfaces should be characterized, and discuss their various applications. We will see how metasurfaces are distinguished from conventional frequency-selective surfaces. Metasurfaces have a wide range of potential applications in electromagnetics (ranging from low microwave to optical frequencies), including: (1) controllable “smart” surfaces, (2) miniaturized cavity resonators, (3) novel wave-guiding structures, (4) angular-independent surfaces, (5) absorbers, (6) biomedical devices, (7) terahertz switches, and (8) fluid-tunable frequency-agile materials, to name only a few. In this review, we will see that the development in recent years of such materials and/or surfaces is bringing us closer to realizing the exciting speculations made over one hundred years ago by the work of Lamb, Schuster, and Pocklington, and later by Mandel'shtam and Veselago.

An Overview of the Theory and Applications of Metasurfaces: The Two-Dimensional Equivalents of Metamaterials

Smart materials offering great freedom in manipulating electromagnetic radiation have been developed. This exciting new concept was realized by Tie Jun Cui and co-workers at the Southeast University, China, who developed digital metamaterials consisting of two kinds of unit cells whose different phase responses allow them to act as ‘0’ and ‘1’ bits. These cells can be judiciously arranged in sequences to enable controlled manipulation of electromagnetic waves. This is one-bit coding; higher-bit coding is possible by employing more kinds of unit cells. The researchers developed a metamaterial cell whose binary response can be controlled by a biased diode. By using a field-programmable gate array, they demonstrated that this digital metamaterial can be programmed. Such metamaterials are attractive for controlling radiation beams in antennas and for realizing other ‘smart’ metamaterials.

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Coding metamaterials, digital metamaterials and programmable metamaterials

Photonic metamaterials are man-made structures composed of tailored micro- or nanostructured metallodielectric subwavelength building blocks. This deceptively simple yet powerful concept allows the realization of many new and unusual optical properties, such as magnetism at optical frequencies, negative refractive index, large positive refractive index, zero reflection through impedance matching, perfect absorption, giant circular dichroism and enhanced nonlinear optical properties. Possible applications of metamaterials include ultrahigh-resolution imaging systems, compact polarization optics and cloaking devices. This Review describes recent progress in the fabrication of three-dimensional metamaterial structures and discusses some of the remaining challenges.

Past achievements and future challenges in the development of three-dimensional photonic metamaterials

Resonant plasmonic and metamaterial structures allow for control of fundamental optical processes such as absorption, emission and refraction at the nanoscale. Considerable recent research has focused on energy absorption processes, and plasmonic nanostructures have been shown to enhance the performance of photovoltaic and thermophotovoltaic cells. Although reducing metallic losses is a widely sought goal in nanophotonics, the design of nanostructured 'black' super absorbers from materials comprising only lossless dielectric materials and highly reflective noble metals represents a new research direction. Here we demonstrate an ultrathin (260 nm) plasmonic super absorber consisting of a metal–insulator–metal stack with a nanostructured top silver film composed of crossed trapezoidal arrays. Our super absorber yields broadband and polarization-independent resonant light absorption over the entire visible spectrum (400–700 nm) with an average measured absorption of 0.71 and simulated absorption of 0.85. Proposed nanostructured absorbers open a path to realize ultrathin black metamaterials based on resonant absorption.

/pdf/broadband-polarization-independent-resonant-light-absorption-15labulryh.pdf

Broadband polarization-independent resonant light absorption using ultrathin plasmonic super absorbers

We present the design for an absorbing metamaterial (MM) with near unity absorbance A(omega). Our structure consists of two MM resonators that couple separately to electric and magnetic fields so as to absorb all incident radiation within a single unit cell layer. We fabricate, characterize, and analyze a MM absorber with a slightly lower predicted A(omega) of 96%. Unlike conventional absorbers, our MM consists solely of metallic elements. The substrate can therefore be optimized for other parameters of interest. We experimentally demonstrate a peak A(omega) greater than 88% at 11.5 GHz.

Perfect metamaterial absorber.

In this paper, an improved dipole-moment model for characterizing near-field coupling and far-field radiation from an IC based on near-field scanning is proposed. An array of electric and magnetic dipole moments is used to reproduce the field distributions in a scanning plane above an IC. These dipole moments can then be used as noise sources for the IC. In order to ensure the accurate prediction of the near-field coupling from the IC, the regularization technique and the truncated singular-value decomposition method are investigated in this paper, together with the conventional least-squares method, to reconstruct the dipole moments from the near-field scanning data. A simple example is used to demonstrate the approach. The improved dipole-moment model is particularly useful for addressing radio-frequency interference issues where near-field noise coupling needs to be accurately analyzed.

https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3074&context=doctoral_dissertations

An Improved Dipole-Moment Model Based on Near-Field Scanning for Characterizing Near-Field Coupling and Far-Field Radiation From an IC

This work investigates the gains realisable through the use of artificially structured materials, otherwise known as metamaterials, in the wide angle impedance matching (WAIM) of waveguide-fed phased-array antennas. The authors propose that the anisotropic properties of a metamaterial layer, when designed appropriately, can be employed to achieve impedance matching at a wide contiguous range of phased-array antenna transmission angles. Simulation and numerical results show that an optimised impedance match over a broad angular range can be readily achieved using a doubly uniaxial (magnetic and electric) anisotropic layer, an outcome not found accomplishable when an optimised isotropic dielectric layer is used. The authors propose the possibility of using metamaterials to achieve anisotropic WAIM layer configurations, and the authors show, using two simple uniaxial designs, that a metamaterial layer over the phased-array gives performance characteristics similar to its homogeneous anisotropic effective medium counterpart.

Wide angle impedance matching metamaterials for waveguide-fed phased-array antennas

We present angle-resolved free-space transmission and reflection measurements of a surface composed of complementary electric inductive-capacitive (CELC) resonators. By measuring the reflection and transmission coefficients of a CELC surface with different polarizations and particle orientations, we show that the CELC only responds to in-plane magnetic fields. This confirms the Babinet particle duality between the CELC and its complement, the electric field coupled LC resonator. Characterization of the CELC structure serves to expand the current library of resonant elements metamaterial designers can draw upon to make unique materials and surfaces.

Characterization of complementary electric field coupled resonant surfaces

This paper reports an experimental demonstration of a 32-Gbit/s wireless link using orbital angular momentum (OAM) and polarization multiplexing in a millimeter-wave regime at 60 GHz. Results of the analysis show that a higher carrier frequency reduces the propagation loss as well as the size of the transmitter and receiver, particularly for OAM channels with higher OAM values. Further, two different OAM channels (with l = +1 and l = +3) on each of the two polarizations are spatially multiplexed, and each channel carries 2-Gbaud signals with 16-QAM modulation. Spiral phase plates are used to generate 60-GHz OAM beams. The simulation results show that a higher carrier frequency plays a more significant role in reducing both the aperture size and the transmission loss for channels with higher OAM values. The bit error rates (BERs) of 4 channels are measured, and the raw BERs are found to be less than 3.8 × 10−3

Soji Sajuyigbe

Papers

Perfect metamaterial absorber.

An Improved Dipole-Moment Model Based on Near-Field Scanning for Characterizing Near-Field Coupling and Far-Field Radiation From an IC

Wide angle impedance matching metamaterials for waveguide-fed phased-array antennas

Characterization of complementary electric field coupled resonant surfaces

32-Gbit/s 60-GHz millimeter-wave wireless communication using orbital angular momentum and polarization multiplexing