SGER: New Opportunitiues with Intrinsic Left-handed Metamaterials

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This is a Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) award. The project will allow a rapid follow-up to the PI's discovery of a new class of materials, the so-called left-handed materials (LHM). In normal materials, both the electric permittivity and the magnetic permeability are observed to be positive quantities. LHM are composite materials constructed so that the permeability and permittivity are simultaneously negative. The properties of LHM are quite different from ordinary materials. Some of the most important and non-intuitive properties of LHM are exposed when electromagnetic radiation propagates through such a LHM medium. For example, Snell's law is reversed. In work to date, materials have been constructed that behave as LHM in the microwave region. This SGER award will allow the exploration of theoretical and experimental work to determine if LHM materials can be fabricated at optical frequencies. If this can be achieved, and it is not known with certainty whether this will be possible, the potential impact of LHM in photonic materials, laser applications and other technical areas would be substantial. This is a Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) Award. The Principal Investigator and co-workers have produced a new class of composite materials with physical properties that scientists theorized might be possible, but had never before been produced. The materials are called left-handed materials (LHM) because they reverse many of the physical properties observed in ordinary materials in response to electromagnetic radiation. The new class of materials has the ability to reverse properties such as the Doppler effect, the principle that changes the frequency of waves as the source of the waves moves. Thus, a train whistle sounds higher in pitch as the train approaches and lower as the train recedes. Maxwell's equations, which describe the relationship between magnetic and electric fields, suggest that microwave radiation or light would show the opposite effect in this new class of materials, shifting to lower frequencies as the source approaches. Similarly, Maxwell's equations suggest that a lens made of such materials, instead of dispersing electromagnetic radiation as usual, would focus it as it passes through. This SGER award will allow the exploration of theoretical and experimental work to determine if LHM materials can be fabricated at optical frequencies. Such materials would have strange properties such as a flashlight shining on a LHM slab would be focused at a point on the other side. Students and post-docs working on this project will received excellent training in a new area, and will be qualified for a range of employment in academe, industry and government.