Quantum Chaos and Electromagnetic Chaos

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

Left-handed Metamaterials (LHM) are artificially constructed media that exhibit negative index of refraction for incident electromagnetic waves and that have been recently realized at microwave frequencies. Research on LHM including the PI's reports published in Nature and Physical Review Letters, has been selected by the journal Science as one of the breakthroughs of the year 2003. The PI has established a state-of-the-art program that combines microwave experiments, quasi-classical analytical and numerical simulation capabilities. These capabilities will be used to explore new phenomena and applications arising from negative refraction in LHM. The group will design and fabricate LHM either from composite metamaterials (Type I) or photonic crystals (Type II). LHM drastically affect the spectra and eigenfunctions of cavities partially filled by them, and may lead to new applications in microcavity lasing. New approaches to imaging using negative refraction will be explored, including sub-wavelength resolution due to amplification of evanescent waves. Flat lenses and Superlenses made of a slab of LHM, which aim to achieve near perfect image reconstruction by both propagating and evanescent waves, will be fabricated and studied. New optical elements using negative refraction will be developed, such as plano-concave lenses for focusing distant objects. In these media, coherent scattering leads to image formation even though the classical or ray optics limit is chaotic. The general principles of image reconstruction using negative refraction will be developed and established. The laboratory scale microwave experiments will be scaled down to nanometer lengths to study imaging using photonic crystals and chaotic scattering at optical frequencies. Graduate and undergraduate students and post-doctoral fellows will be trained in areas of cutting edge research. The concepts of quantum chaos and negative refraction will be incorporated into the educational curriculum. The results will be disseminated by publications and presentations. A web site will be created to disseminate the principal results to the wider public.