2D impedance-matched zero-index metamaterial

Presentation Date: 

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Location: 

SPIE Photonics West: Photonic and Phononic Properties of Engineered Nanostructures IV (San Francisco, California)
Recent efforts to achieve metamaterials with a vanishing refractive index take advantage of the low index at a photonic band edge. This behavior is accompanied by a divergent impedance, resulting in inefficient transmission. We investigate the nature of this discontinuity and show that it can be removed by tuning the electric and magnetic response of the metamaterial. We present a design for a 2D zero-index metamaterial based on this concept. The metamaterial is entirely dielectric, which results in low-loss transmission at the design wavelength of 1.55um. This behavior is confirmed using finite-difference time domain (FDTD) methods.