Yuan, Hao B.; Bao, Wen T.; Lee, Chung H.; Zinser, Brian F.; Campione, Salvatore; Lee, Jin F.
A new adaptive rational interpolation method is proposed to obtain the wideband frequency response of a resonant cavity simulated with the method of moments (MoM). This interpolation method uses both the Loewner matrix to construct a rational expression for the solution vector of MoM's matrix system and an error estimator generated by the solution vectors and their derivatives. This error estimator is implemented in the adaptive procedure to gain a minimum set of frequencies and solution vectors required in the interpolation. The resulting set of frequencies and solution vectors is applied to interpolate other system variables, such as shielding effectiveness and input impedance. Numerical results of a slotted cylindrical cavity supporting high-quality factor resonances are presented, showing that the new rational interpolation method is accurate and efficient in interpolating the complicated resonant response of the solution vector functions.
Enhancing the efficiency of second-harmonic generation using all-dielectric metasurfaces to date has mostly focused on electromagnetic engineering of optical modes in the meta-atom. Further advances in nonlinear conversion efficiencies can be gained by engineering the material nonlinearities at the nanoscale, however this cannot be achieved using conventional materials. Semiconductor heterostructures that support resonant nonlinearities using quantum engineered intersubband transitions can provide this new degree of freedom. By simultaneously optimizing the heterostructures and meta-atoms, we experimentally realize an all-dielectric polaritonic metasurface with a maximum second-harmonic generation power conversion factor of 0.5 mW/W2 and power conversion efficiencies of 0.015% at nominal pump intensities of 11 kW/cm2. These conversion efficiencies are higher than the record values reported to date in all-dielectric nonlinear metasurfaces but with 3 orders of magnitude lower pump power. Our results therefore open a new direction for designing efficient nonlinear all-dielectric metasurfaces for new classical and quantum light sources.
We examine coupling into azimuthal slots on an infinite cylinder with a infinite length interior cavity operating both at the fundamental cavity modal frequencies, with small slots and a resonant slot, as well as higher frequencies. The coupling model considers both radiation on an infinite cylindrical exterior as well as a half space approximation. Bounding calculations based on maximum slot power reception and interior power balance are also discussed in detail and compared with the prior calculations. For higher frequencies limitations on matching are imposed by restricting the loads ability to shift the slot operation to the nearest slot resonance; this is done in combination with maximizing the power reception as a function of angle of incidence. Finally, slot power mismatch based on limited cavity load quality factor is considered below the first slot resonance.
A resonant cavity undergoes three distinct behaviors with increasing frequency: 1) fundamental modes, localized in frequency with well defined modal distribution; 2) undermoded region, where modes are still separated, but are sufficiently perturbed by small imperfections that their spectral positions (and distributions) are statistical in nature; and 3) overmoded region, where modes overlap, field distributions follow stochastic distributions, and the slot acts as if in free space. Understanding the penetration through slots in the overmoded region is of great interest, and is the focus of this article. Since full-wave solvers may not be able to provide a timely answer for very high frequencies due to a lack of memory and/or computation resources, we develop bounding methods to estimate worst-case average and maximum fields within the cavity. After discussing the bounding formulation, we compare its results to full-wave simulations at the first, second, and third resonance supported by the slot in the case of a cylindrical cavity. Note that the bounding formulation indicates that results are nearly independent of cavity shape: only the cavity volume, frequency, and cavity quality factor affect the overmoded region, making this formulation a powerful tool to assess electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility effects within cavities.
High-quality factor resonant cavities are challenging structures to model in electromagnetics owing to their large sensitivity to minute parameter changes. Therefore, uncertainty quantification (UQ) strategies are pivotal to understanding key parameters affecting the cavity response. We discuss here some of these strategies focusing on shielding effectiveness (SE) properties of a canonical slotted cylindrical cavity that will be used to develop credibility evidence in support of predictions made using computational simulations for this application.
In this paper, we characterize the logarithmic singularities arising in the method of moments from the Green's function in integrals over the test domain, and we use two approaches for designing geometrically symmetric quadrature rules to integrate these singular integrands. These rules exhibit better convergence properties than quadrature rules for polynomials and, in general, lead to better accuracy with a lower number of quadrature points. We demonstrate their effectiveness for several examples encountered in both the scalar and vector potentials of the electric-field integral equation (singular, near-singular, and far interactions) as compared to the commonly employed polynomial scheme and the double Ma–Rokhlin–Wandzura (DMRW) rules, whose sample points are located asymmetrically within triangles.
Mie-resonant dielectric metasurfaces are excellent candidates for both fundamental studies related to light-matter interactions and for numerous applications ranging from holography to sensing to nonlinear optics. To date, however, most applications using Mie metasurfaces utilize only weak light-matter interaction. Here, we go beyond the weak coupling regime and demonstrate for the first time strong polaritonic coupling between Mie photonic modes and intersubband (ISB) transitions in semiconductor heterostructures. Furthermore, along with demonstrating ISB polaritons with Rabi splitting as large as 10%, we also demonstrate the ability to tailor the strength of strong coupling by engineering either the semiconductor heterostructure or the photonic mode of the resonators. Unlike previous plasmonic-based works, our new all-dielectric metasurface approach to generate ISB polaritons is free from ohmic losses and has high optical damage thresholds, thereby making it ideal for creating novel and compact mid-infrared light sources based on nonlinear optics.
We analyze the coupling into a slotted cylindrical cavity operating at fundamental cavity modal frequencies overlapping with the slot’s first resonance frequency through an unmatched formulation that accounts for the slot’s absorption and radiation processes. The model is validated through full-wave simulations and experimental data. We then couple the unmatched formulation to a perturbation theory model to investigate an absorber within the cavity to reduce the interior field strength, also validated with full-wave simulations and experiments. These models are pivotal to understanding the physical processes involved in the electromagnetic penetration through slots, and may constitute design tools to mitigate electromagnetic interference effects within cavities.
Sandia National Laboratories sponsored a three-year internally funded Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) effort to investigate the vulnerabilities and mitigations of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) on the electric power grid. The research was focused on understanding the vulnerabilities and potential mitigations for components and systems at the high voltage transmission level. Results from the research included a broad array of subtopics, covered in twenty-three reports and papers, and which are highlighted in this executive summary report. These subtopics include high altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) characterization, HEMP coupling analysis, system-wide effects, and mitigating technologies.
In this article, we examine the coupling into an electrically short azimuthal slot on a cylindrical cavity operating at fundamental cavity modal frequencies. We first develop a matched bound formulation through which we can gather information for maximum achievable levels of interior cavity fields. Actual field levels are below this matched bound; therefore, we also develop an unmatched formulation for frequencies below the slot resonance to achieve a better insight on the physics of this coupling. Good agreement is observed between the unmatched formulation, full-wave simulations, and experimental data, providing a validation of our analytical models. We then extend the unmatched formulation to treat an array of slots, found again in good agreement with full-wave simulations. These analytical models can be used to investigate ways to mitigate electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility effects within cavities.
We describe here diffusion models apt to construct a multipole-based, cable braid time domain model for conducting wires. Implementation details of both a ladder network valid for time-domain signals with all frequency content and an approximate single-stage circuit valid for low-frequency dominated time signals (such as electromagnetic pulses) are reported. This time domain model can be leveraged to treat system-generated electromagnetic pulse events, as well as used to further confirm the correctness of the multipole-based, cable braid frequency domain model.
This paper implemented an approximate direct inverse for the surface integral equation including multilevel fast-multipole method. We apply it as a preconditioner to two examples suffering convergence problem with an iterative solver.
The Lorentz-like effective medium resonance (LEMR) exhibited by the longitudinal effective permittivity of semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (SHMs) has been known for some time. However, direct observation of this resonance proved to be difficult. Herein, we experimentally demonstrate its existence by strongly coupling SHMs to plasmonic metasurfaces. We consider four strong coupling implementations of SHMs that exhibit different LEMR absorption profiles (both in frequency and in strength) to validate our approach.
Transparent conducting oxides, such as doped indium oxide, zinc oxide, and cadmium oxide (CdO), have recently attracted attention as tailorable materials for applications in nanophotonic and plasmonic devices such as low-loss modulators and all-optical switches due to their tunable optical properties, fast optical response, and low losses. In this work, optically induced extraordinarily large reflection changes (up to 135%) are demonstrated in bulk CdO films in the mid-infrared wavelength range close to the epsilon near zero (ENZ) point. To develop a better understanding of how doping level affects the static and dynamic optical properties of CdO, the evolution of the optical properties with yttrium (Y) doping is investigated. An increase in the metallicity and a blueshift of the ENZ point with increasing Y-concentrations is observed. Broadband all-optical switching from near-infrared to mid-infrared wavelengths is demonstrated. The major photoexcited carrier relaxation mechanisms in CdO are identified and it is shown that the relaxation times can be significantly reduced by increasing the dopant concentration in the film. This work could pave the way to practical dynamic and passive optical and plasmonic devices with doped CdO spanning wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared region.
Placing microwave absorbing materials into a high-quality factor resonant cavity may in general reduce the large interior electromagnetic fields excited under external illumination. In this paper, we aim to combine two analytical models we previously developed: 1) an unmatched formulation for frequencies below the slot resonance to model shielding effectiveness versus frequency; and 2) a perturbation model approach to estimate the quality factor of cavities in the presence of absorbers. The resulting model realizes a toolkit with which design guidelines of the absorber’s properties and location can be optimized over a frequency band. Analytic predictions of shielding effectiveness for three transverse magnetic modes for various locations of the absorber placed on the inside cavity wall show good agreement with both full-wave simulations and experiments, and validate the proposed model. This analysis opens new avenues for specialized ways to mitigate harmful fields within cavities.
The goal of this paper is to present, for the first time, calculations of the magnetic penetration case of a first principles multipole-based cable braid electromagnetic penetration model. As a first test case, a one-dimensional array of perfect electrically conducting wires, for which an analytical solution is known, is investigated: We compare both the self-inductance and the transfer inductance results from our first principles cable braid electromagnetic penetration model to those obtained using the analytical solution. These results are found in good agreement up to a radius to half spacing ratio of about 0.78, demonstrating a robustness needed for many commercial and non-commercial cables. We then analyze a second set of test cases of a square array of wires whose solution is the same as the one-dimensional array result and of a rhomboidal array whose solution can be estimated from Kley’s model. As a final test case, we consider two layers of one-dimensional arrays of wires to investigate porpoising effects analytically. We find good agreement with analytical and Kley’s results for these geometries, verifying our proposed multipole model. Note that only our multipole model accounts for the full dependence on the actual cable geometry which enables us to model more complicated cable geometries.
Electromagnetic shields are usually employed to protect cables and other devices; however, these are generally not perfect, and may permit external magnetic and electric fields to penetrate into the interior regions of the cable, inducing unwanted current and voltages. The aim of this paper is to verify a circuit model tool with our previously proposed analytical model [1] for evaluating currents and voltages induced in the inner conductor of braided-shield cables. This circuit model will enable coupling between electromagnetic and circuit simulations.
A prominent nonlinear optical phenomenon that is extensively studied using nanostructured materials is second-harmonic generation (SHG) as it has applications in various fields. Achieving efficient SHG from a nanostructure requires a large second-order nonlinear susceptibility of the material system and large electromagnetic fields. For practical applications, the nanostructures should also have low losses, high damage thresholds, large bandwidths, wavelength scalability, dual mode operation in transmission and reflection, monolithic integrability, and ease of fabrication. While various approaches have demonstrated efficient SHG, to the best of our knowledge, none have demonstrated all these desired qualities simultaneously. Here, we present a hybrid approach for realizing efficient SHG in an ultrathin dielectric-semiconductor nonlinear device with all the above-mentioned desired properties. Our approach uses high quality factor leaky mode resonances in dielectric metasurfaces that are coupled to intersubband transitions of semiconductor quantum wells. Using our device, we demonstrate SHG at pump wavelengths ranging from 8.5 to 11 μm, with a maximum second-harmonic nonlinear conversion factor of 1.1 mW/W2 and maximum second-harmonic conversion efficiency of 2.5 × 10-5 at modest pump intensities of 10 kW/cm2. Our results open a new direction for designing low loss, broadband, and efficient ultrathin nonlinear optical devices.
Metamaterials research has developed perfect absorbers from microwave to optical frequencies, mainly featuring planar metamaterials, also referred to as metasurfaces. In this study, we investigated vertically oriented metamaterials, which make use of the entire three-dimensional space, as a new avenue to widen the spectral absorption band in the infrared regime between 20 and 40 THz. Vertically oriented metamaterials, such as those simulated in this work, can be experimentally realized through membrane projection lithography, which allows a single unit cell to be decorated with multiple resonators by exploiting the vertical dimension. In particular, we analyzed the cases of a unit cell containing a single vertical split-ring resonator (VSRR), a single planar split-ring resonator (PSRR), and both a VSRR and PSRR to explore intra-cell coupling between resonators. We show that the additional degrees of freedom enabled by placing multiple resonators in a unit cell lead to novel ways of achieving omnidirectional super absorption. Our results provide an innovative approach for controlling and designing engineered nanostructures.
In this paper, we investigate the coupling from external electromagnetic (EM) fields to the interior EM fields of a high-quality factor cylindrical cavity through a small perturbing slot. We illustrate the shielding effectiveness versus frequency, highlighting bounds on the penetrant power through the slot. Because internal fields may become larger than external ones, we then introduce a small amount of microwave absorbing materials decorating the slot to improve shielding effectiveness considerably, as shown by both simulations and experiments. Although the cylindrical cavity is used for demonstration purposes in this paper, the conclusions presented here can be leveraged for use with more complex cavity structures.
We numerically analyze the role of carrier mobility in transparent conducting oxides in epsilon-near-zero phase modulators. High-mobility materials such as cadmium oxide enable compact photonic phase modulators with a modulation figure of merit >29 º/dB.
Recently there has been a large interest in achieving metasurface resonances with large quality factors. In this article, we examine metasurfaces that comprised a finite number of magnetic dipoles oriented parallel or orthogonal to the plane of the metasurface and determine analytic formulas for their resonances’ quality factors. These conditions are experimentally achievable in finite-size metasurfaces made of dielectric cubic resonators at the magnetic dipole resonance. Our results show that finite metasurfaces made of parallel (to the plane) magnetic dipoles exhibit low quality factor resonances with a quality factor that is independent of the number of resonators. More importantly, finite metasurfaces made of orthogonal (to the plane) magnetic dipoles lead to resonances with large quality factors, which ultimately depend on the number of resonators comprising the metasurface. In particular, by properly modulating the array of dipole moments by having a distribution of resonator polarizabilities, one can potentially increase the quality factor of metasurface resonances even further. These results provide design guidelines to achieve a sought quality factor applicable to any resonator geometry for the development of new devices such as photodetectors, modulators, and sensors.
De Ceglia, Domenico; Scalora, Michael; Vincenti, Maria A.; Campione, Salvatore; Kelley, Kyle; Runnerstrom, Evan L.; Maria, Jon P.; Keeler, Gordon A.; Luk, Ting S.
Optical nonlocalities are elusive and hardly observable in traditional plasmonic materials like noble and alkali metals. Here we report experimental observation of viscoelastic nonlocalities in the infrared optical response of epsilon-near-zero nanofilms made of low-loss doped cadmium-oxide. The nonlocality is detectable thanks to the low damping rate of conduction electrons and the virtual absence of interband transitions at infrared wavelengths. We describe the motion of conduction electrons using a hydrodynamic model for a viscoelastic fluid, and find excellent agreement with experimental results. The electrons' elasticity blue-shifts the infrared plasmonic resonance associated with the main epsilon-near-zero mode, and triggers the onset of higher-order resonances due to the excitation of electron-pressure modes above the bulk plasma frequency. We also provide evidence of the existence of nonlocal damping, i.e., viscosity, in the motion of optically-excited conduction electrons using a combination of spectroscopic ellipsometry data and predictions based on the viscoelastic hydrodynamic model.
We study semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (SHMs) at the quantum limit experimentally using spectroscopic ellipsometry as well as theoretically using a new microscopic theory. The theory is a combination of microscopic density matrix approach for the material response and Green’s function approach for the propagating electric field. Our approach predicts absorptivity of the full multilayer system and for the first time allows the prediction of in-plane and out-of-plane dielectric functions for every individual layer constructing the SHM as well as effective dielectric functions that can be used to describe a homogenized SHM.
The ability to control the light-matter interaction with an external stimulus is a very active area of research since it creates exciting new opportunities for designing optoelectronic devices. Recently, plasmonic metasurfaces have proven to be suitable candidates for achieving a strong light-matter interaction with various types of optical transitions, including intersubband transitions (ISTs) in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs). For voltage modulation of the light-matter interaction, plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to ISTs offer unique advantages since the parameters determining the strength of the interaction can be independently engineered. In this work, we report a proof-of-concept demonstration of a new approach to voltage-tune the coupling between ISTs in QWs and a plasmonic metasurface. In contrast to previous approaches, the IST strength is here modified via control of the electron populations in QWs located in the near field of the metasurface. By turning on and off the ISTs in the semiconductor QWs, we observe a modulation of the optical response of the IST coupled metasurface due to modulation of the coupled light-matter states. Because of the electrostatic design, our device exhibits an extremely low leakage current of ∼6 pA at a maximum operating bias of +1 V and therefore very low power dissipation. Our approach provides a new direction for designing voltage-tunable metasurface-based optical modulators.
This report explores the coupling between EIGER simulations and a transmission line analytical model to enable end-to-end simulations to translate an exterior electromagnetic environment to assess effects on electronic system performance.
This report explores the potential for reducing the fields and the quality factor within a system cavity by introducing microwave absorbing materials. Although the concept of introducing absorbing (lossy) materials within a cavity to drive the interior field levels down is well known, increasing the loading into a complex weapon cavity specifically for improved electromagnetic performance has not, in general, been considered, and this will be the subject of this work. We compare full-wave simulations to experimental results, demonstrating the applicability of the proposed method.
Improving the sensitivity of infrared detectors is an essential step for future applications, including satellite- and terrestrial-based systems. We investigate nanoantenna-enabled detectors (NEDs) in the infrared, where the nanoantenna arrays play a fundamental role in enhancing the level of absorption within the active material of a photodetector. The design and optimization of nanoantenna-enabled detectors via full-wave simulations is a challenging task given the large parameter space to be explored. Here, we present a fast and accurate fully analytic circuit model of patch-based NEDs. This model allows for the inclusion of real metals, realistic patch thicknesses, non-absorbing spacer layers, the active detector layer, and absorption due to higher-order evanescent modes of the metallic array. We apply the circuit model to the design of NED devices based on Type II superlattice absorbers, and show that we can achieve absorption of ∼70% of the incoming energy in subwavelength (∼λ∕5) absorber layers. The accuracy of the circuit model is verified against full-wave simulations, establishing this model as an efficient design tool to quickly and accurately optimize NED structures.
In this paper, we analyze a compact silicon photonic phase modulator at 1.55 μm using epsilon-near-zero transparent conducting oxide (TCO) films. The operating principle of the non-resonant phase modulator is field-effect carrier density modulation in a thin TCO film deposited on top of a passive silicon waveguide with a CMOS-compatible fabrication process. We compare phase modulator performance using both indium oxide (In2O3) and cadmium oxide (CdO) TCO materials. Our findings show that practical phase modulation can be achieved only when using high-mobility (i.e. low-loss) epsilon-near-zero materials such as CdO. The CdO-based phase modulator has a figure of merit of 17.1°/dB in a compact 5 μm length. This figure of merit can be increased further through the proper selection of high-mobility TCOs, opening a path for device miniaturization and increased phase shifts.
Considering the power constrained scaling of silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor technology, the use of high mobility III-V compound semiconductors such as In0.53Ga0.47As in conjunction with high-κ dielectrics is becoming a promising option for future n-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect-transistors. Development of low dissipation field-effect tunable III-V based photonic devices integrated with high-κ dielectrics is therefore very appealing from a technological perspective. In this work, we present an experimental realization of a monolithically integrable, field-effect-tunable, III-V hybrid metasurface operating at long-wave-infrared spectral bands. Our device relies on strong light-matter coupling between epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes of an ultra-thin In0.53Ga0.47As layer and the dipole resonances of a complementary plasmonic metasurface. The tuning mechanism of our device is based on field-effect modulation, where we modulate the coupling between the ENZ mode and the metasurface by modifying the carrier density in the ENZ layer using an external bias voltage. Modulating the bias voltage between ±2 V, we deplete and accumulate carriers in the ENZ layer, which result in spectrally tuning the eigenfrequency of the upper polariton branch at 13 μm by 480 nm and modulating the reflectance by 15%, all with leakage current densities less than 1 μA/cm2. Our wavelength scalable approach demonstrates the possibility of designing on-chip voltage-tunable filters compatible with III-V based focal plane arrays at mid- and long-wave-infrared wavelengths.
This report compares ATLOG modeling results for the response of a finite-length dissipative buried conductor interacting with a conducting ground to a measurement taken November 2016 at the High-Energy Radiation Megavolt Electron Source (HERMES) facility. We use the ATLOG frequency-domain method based on transmission line theory. Estimates of the impedance per unit length and admittance per unit length for a cable laying in a PVC pipe embedded in a concrete block are reported. Current wave shapes from both a single conductor and composite differential mode and antenna mode arrangements are close to those observed in the experiments. Intentionally Left Blank
This report considers plane wave coupling to a transmission line consisting of a wire above a conducting ground. Comparisons are made for the two types of available source models, along with a discussion about the decomposition of the line currents. Simple circuit models are constructed for the terminating impedances at the ends of the line including radiation effects. Results from the transmission line with these loads show good agreement with full wave simulations. Intentionally Left Blank
In this paper, we report our recent findings about a first principles, multipole-based model of electric and magnetic cable braid penetrations. We consider for brevity a one-dimensional array of wires, but the model can be readily applied to realistic cable geometries. Comparisons between the first principles method and analytical formulas will be provided for both electric and magnetic penetration cases. These comparisons confirm that our first principles model works within the geometric characteristics of many commercial cables.
This paper provides an overview of the electromagnetic frequency domain simulation capabilities of the Electromagnetic Theory department at Sandia National Laboratories via a description of two of its codes. EIGER is a Method of Moments code for electromagnetic simulations, but it only runs on traditional CPUs, not on new architectures. Gemma is in development to replace EIGER and will run on many architectures, including CPUs, GPUs, and MICs, by leveraging the Kokkos library.
Control and manipulation of polarisation is an important topic for imaging and light matter interactions. In the infrared regime, the large wavelengths make wire grid polarisers (WGPs) a viable option, as it is possible to create periodic arrays of metallic wires at that scale. The recent advent of metamaterials has spurred an increase in non-traditional polariser motifs centred around more complicated repeat units, which potentially provide more functionality. The authors explore the use of 2D arrays of single and back-to-back vertically oriented cross dipoles arranged in a cubic in-plane silicon matrix. They show that both single and back-to-back versions have higher rejection ratios and larger bandwidths than either WGPs or 2D arrays of linear dipoles.
Optical communication systems increasingly require electrooptical modulators that deliver high modulation speeds across a large optical bandwidth with a small device footprint and a CMOS-compatible fabrication process. Although silicon photonic modulators based on transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have shown promise for delivering on these requirements, modulation speeds to date have been limited. Here, we describe the design, fabrication, and performance of a fast, compact electroabsorption modulator based on TCOs. The modulator works by using bias voltage to increase the carrier density in the conducting oxide, which changes the permittivity and hence optical attenuation by almost 10 dB. Under bias, light is tightly confined to the conducting oxide layer through nonresonant epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) effects, which enable modulation over a broad range of wavelengths in the telecommunications band. Our approach features simple integration with passive silicon waveguides, the use of stable inorganic materials, and the ability to modulate both transverse electric and magnetic polarizations with the same device design. Using a 4-μm-long modulator and a drive voltage of 2 Vpp, we demonstrate digital modulation at rates of 2.5 Gb/s. We report broadband operation with a 6.5 dB extinction ratio across the 1530–1590 nm band and a 10 dB insertion loss. This work verifies that high-speed ENZ devices can be created using conducting oxide materials and paves the way for additional technology development that could have a broad impact on future optical communications systems.
Metamaterials provide a means to tailor the spectral response of a surface. Given the periodic nature of the metamaterial, proper design of the unit cell requires intimate knowledge of the parameter space for each design variable. We present a detailed study of the parameter space surrounding vertical split-ring resonators and planar split-ring resonators, and demonstrate widening of the perfect absorption bandwidth based on the understanding of its parameter space.
In this paper, we report the formulation to account for dielectrics in a first principles multipole-based cable braid electromagnetic penetration model. To validate our first principles model, we consider a one-dimensional array of wires, which can be modeled analytically with a multipole-conformal mapping expansion for the wire charges; however, the first principles model can be readily applied to realistic cable geometries. We compare the elastance (i.e., the inverse of the capacitance) results from the first principles cable braid electromagnetic penetration model to those obtained using the analytical model. The results are found in good agreement up to a radius to half spacing ratio of 0.5–0.6, depending on the permittivity of the dielectric used, within the characteristics of many commercial cables. We observe that for typical relative permittivities encountered in braided cables, the transfer elastance values are essentially the same as those of free space; the self-elastance values are also approximated by the free space solution as long as the dielectric discontinuity is taken into account for the planar mode.
We demonstrate active tuning of high-Q dielectric metasurfaces by embedding asymmetric silicon meta-atoms in liquid crystals, thus controlling the relative refractive index by heating. Spectral tuning of more than three resonance widths is achieved.
This paper investigates three-dimensional cut wire pair (CWP) behavior in vertically oriented meta-atoms. We first analyze CWP metamaterial inclusions using full-wave electromagnetic simulations. The scattering behavior of the vertical CWP differs substantially from that of the planar version of the same structure. In particular, we show that the vertical CWP supports a magnetic resonance that is solely excited by the incident magnetic field. This is in stark contrast to the bianisotropic resonant excitation of in-plane CWPs. We further show that this CWP behavior can occur in other vertical metamaterial resonators, such as back-to-back linear dipoles and back-to-back split ring resonators (SRRs), due to the strong coupling between the closely spaced metallic elements in the back-to-back configuration. In the case of SRRs, the vertical CWP mode (unexplored in previous literature) can be excited with a magnetic field that is parallel to both SRR loops, and exists in addition to the familiar fundamental resonances of the individual SRRs. In order to fully describe the scattering behavior from such dense arrays of three-dimensional structures, coupling effects between the close-packed inclusions must be included. The new flexibility afforded by using vertical resonators allows us to controllably create purely electric inclusions, purely magnetic inclusions, as well as bianisotropic inclusions, and vastly increases the degrees of freedom for the design of metafilms.
Optical nonlinearities are intimately related to the spatial symmetry of the nonlinear media. For example, the second order susceptibility vanishes for centrosymmetric materials under the dipole approximation. The latter concept has been naturally extended to the metamaterials' realm, sometimes leading to the (erroneous) hypothesis that second harmonic (SH) generation is negligible in highly symmetric meta-atoms. In this work we aim to show that such symmetric meta-atoms can radiate SH light efficiently. In particular, we investigate in-plane centrosymmetric meta-atom designs where the approximation for meta-atoms breaks down. In a periodic array this building block allows us to control the directionality of the SH radiation. We conclude by showing that the use of symmetry considerations alone allows for the manipulation of the nonlinear multipolar response of a meta-atom, resulting in e.g. dipolar, quadrupolar, or multipolar emission on demand. This is because the size of the meta-atom is comparable with the free-space wavelength, thus invalidating the dipolar approximation for meta-atoms.
In this paper we investigate full-wave simulations of realistic implementations of multifunctional nanoantenna enabled detectors (NEDs). We focus on a 2x2 pixelated array structure that supports two wavelengths of operation. We design each resonating structure independently using full-wave simulations with periodic boundary conditions mimicking the whole infinite array. We then construct a supercell made of a 2x2 pixelated array with periodic boundary conditions mimicking the full NED; in this case, however, each pixel comprises 10-20 antennas per side. In this way, the cross-talk between contiguous pixels is accounted for in our simulations. We observe that, even though there are finite extent effects, the pixels work as designed, each responding at the respective wavelength of operation. This allows us to stress that realistic simulations of multifunctional NEDs need to be performed to verify the design functionality by taking into account finite extent and cross-talk effects.
We report a frequency-domain method based on transmission line theory that we name ATLOG-Analytic Transmission Line Over Ground-to model finite or infinite wires interacting with a conducting ground excited by an electromagnetic pulse. This method allows for the treatment of finite or infinite lossy, coated wires above a lossy ground, as well as resting on or buried beneath the ground. Comparisons with full-wave simulations strengthen the validity of the proposed method.
We propose a cable braid electromagnetic penetration model that is based on first-principles and is derived strictly from the geometrical parameters of the cable in question. We apply this formulation to the case of a one-dimensional array of wires, which can also be modeled analytically via a multipole-conformal mapping expansion for the wire charges and is extended by means of Laplace solutions in bipolar coordinates. Both electric and magnetic penetrations are analyzed, and comparisons are performed between results from the first principles cable braid electromagnetic penetration model and those obtained using the multipole-conformal mapping expansion method. We find results in very good agreement when using up to the octopole moment (for the first principles model), covering a dynamic range of radius-to-half-spacing ratio up to 0.6. These results give us the confidence that our first principles model is applicable to the geometric characteristics of many commercial cables.
In this report we overview the fundamental concepts for a pair of techniques which together greatly hasten computational predictions of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) excitation of finite-length dissipative conductors over a ground plane. In a time- domain, transmission line (TL) model implementation, predictions are computationally bottlenecked time-wise, either for late-time predictions (about 100ns-10000ns range) or predictions concerning EMP excitation of long TLs (order of kilometers or more ). This is because the method requires a temporal convolution to account for the losses in the ground. Addressing this to facilitate practical simulation of EMP excitation of TLs, we first apply a technique to extract an (approximate) complex exponential function basis-fit to the ground/Earth's impedance function, followed by incorporating this into a recursion-based convolution acceleration technique. Because the recursion-based method only requires the evaluation of the most recent voltage history data (versus the entire history in a "brute-force" convolution evaluation), we achieve necessary time speed- ups across a variety of TL/Earth geometry/material scenarios. Intentionally Left Blank
We examine integration of a patterned metal nanoantenna (or metasurface) directly onto long-wave infrared detectors. These structures show significantly improved external quantum efficiency compared to their traditional counterparts. We will show simulation and experimental results.
This report details the modeling results for the response of a finite-length dissipative conductor interacting with a conducting ground to a hypothetical nuclear device with the same output energy spectrum as the Fat Man device. We use a frequency-domain method based on transmission line theory and implemented it in a code we call ATLOG - Analytic Transmission Line Over Ground. Select results are compared to ones computed using the circuit simulator Xyce. Intentionally Left Blank
This report details the modeling results for the response of a finite-length dissipative conductor interacting with a conducting ground to a hypothetical nuclear device with the same output energy spectrum as the Fat Man device. We use a time-domain method based on transmission line theory that allows accounting for time-varying air conductivities. We implemented such method in a code we call ATLOG - Analytic Transmission Line Over Ground. Results are compared the frequency-domain version of ATLOG previously developed and to the circuit simulator Xyce in some instances. Intentionally Left Blank
This report details the modeling results for the response of a finite-length dissipative conductor interacting with a conducting ground to the Bell Labs electromagnetic pulse excitation. We use both a frequency-domain and a time-domain method based on transmission line theory through a code we call ATLOG - Analytic Transmission Line Over Ground. Results are compared to the circuit simulator Xyce for selected cases. Intentionally Left Blank
This report details the comparison of ATLOG modeling results for the response of a finite-length dissipative aerial conductor interacting with a conducting ground to a measurement taken November 2016 at the High-Energy Radiation Megavolt Electron Source (HERMES) facility. We use the ATLOG time-domain method based on transmission line theory. Good agreement is observed between simulations and experiments. Intentionally Left Blank
In this paper we develop a fully retarded, dipole approximation model to estimate the effective polarizabilities of a dimer made of dielectric resonators. They are computed from the polarizabilities of the two resonators composing the dimer. We analyze the situation of full cubes as well as split cubes, which have been shown to exhibit overlapping electric and magnetic resonances. We compare the effective dimer polarizabilities to ones retrieved via full-wave simulations as well as ones computed via a quasi-static, dipole approximation. We observe good agreement between the fully retarded solution and the full-wave results, whereas the quasi-static approximation is less accurate for the problem at hand. The developed model can be used to predict the electric and magnetic resonances of a dimer under parallel or orthogonal (to the dimer axis) excitation. This is particularly helpful when interested in locating frequencies at which the dimer will emit directional radiation.
Epsilon-near-zero materials provide a new path for tailoring light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. In this paper, we analyze a compact electroabsorption modulator based on epsilon-near-zero confinement in transparent conducting oxide films. The nonresonant modulator operates through field-effect carrier density tuning. We compare the performance of modulators composed of two different conducting oxides, namely, indium oxide (In2O3) and cadmium oxide (CdO), and show that better modulation performance is achieved when using high-mobility (i.e., low loss) epsilon-near-zero materials such as CdO. In particular, we show that nonresonant electroabsorption modulators with submicron lengths and greater than 5 dB extinction ratios may be achieved through the proper selection of high-mobility transparent conducting oxides, opening a path for device miniaturization and increased modulation depth.
We demonstrate the active tuning of all-dielectric metasurfaces exhibiting high-quality factor (high-Q) resonances. The active control is provided by embedding the asymmetric silicon meta-atoms with liquid crystals, which allows the relative index of refraction to be controlled through heating. It is found that high quality factor resonances (Q = 270 ± 30) can be tuned over more than three resonance widths. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using all-dielectric metasurfaces to construct tunable narrow-band filters.
Dielectric metasurfaces that exploit the different Mie resonances of nanoscale dielectric resonators are a powerful platform for manipulating electromagnetic fields and can provide novel optical behavior. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate independent tuning of the magnetic dipole resonances relative to the electric dipole resonances of split dielectric resonators (SDRs). By increasing the split dimension, we observe a blue shift of the magnetic dipole resonance toward the electric dipole resonance. Therefore, SDRs provide the ability to directly control the interaction between the two dipole resonances within the same resonator. For example, we achieve the first Kerker condition by spectrally overlapping the electric and magnetic dipole resonances and observe significantly suppressed backward scattering. Moreover, we show that a single SDR can be used as an optical nanoantenna that provides strong unidirectional emission from an electric dipole source.
In this paper, we investigate the electric penetration case of the first principles multipole-based cable braid electromagnetic penetration model reported in the Progress in Electromagnetics Research B 66, 63–89 (2016). We first analyze the case of a 1-D array of wires: this is a problem which is interesting on its own, and we report its modeling based on a multipole-conformal mapping expansion and extension by means of Laplace solutions in bipolar coordinates. We then compare the elastance (inverse of capacitance) results from our first principles cable braid electromagnetic penetration model to that obtained using the multipole-conformal mapping bipolar solution. These results are found in a good agreement up to a radius to half spacing ratio of 0.6, demonstrating a robustness needed for many commercial cables. We then analyze realistic cable implementations without dielectrics and compare the results from our first principles braid electromagnetic penetration model to the semiempirical results reported by Kley in the IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility 35, 1–9 (1993). Finally, although we find results on the same order of magnitude of Kley's results, the full dependence on the actual cable geometry is accounted for only in our proposed multipole model which, in addition, enables us to treat perturbations from those commercial cables measured.
High-quality infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) are used in many satellite, astronomical, and terrestrial applications. These applications require highly-sensitive, low-noise FPAs, and therefore do not benefit from advances made in low-cost thermal imagers where reducing cost and enabling high-temperature operation drive device development. Infrared detectors used in FPAs have been made for decades from alloys of mercury cadmium telluride (MCT). These infrared detectors are nearing the believed limit of their performance. This limit, known in the infrared detector community as Rule 07, dictates the dark current floor for MCT detectors, in their traditional architecture, for a given temperature and cutoff wavelength. To overcome the bounds imposed by Rule 07, many groups are working on detector compounds other than MCT. We focus on detectors employing III-V-based gallium-free InAsSb superlattice active regions while also changing the basic architecture of the pixel to improve signal-to-noise. Our architecture relies on a resonant, metallic, subwavelength nanoantenna patterned on the absorber surface, in combination with a Fabry-Pérot cavity, to couple the incoming radiation into tightly confined modes near the nanoantenna. This confinement of the incident energy in a thin layer allows us to greatly reduce the volume of the absorbing layer to a fraction of the free-space wavelength, yielding a corresponding reduction in dark current from spontaneously generated electron-hole pairs in the absorber material. This architecture is detector material agnostic and could be applied to MCT detector structures as well, although we focus on using superlattice antimonide-based detector materials. This detector concept has been applied to both mid-wave (3-5 μm) and longwave (8-12 μm) infrared detectors and absorbers. Here we examine long-wave devices, as these detectors currently have a larger gap between desired device performance and that of currently existing detectors. The measured structures show an external quantum efficiency exceeding 50%. We present a comparison of the modeled and measured photoresponse of these detectors and compare these detectors to currently available commercial detectors using relevant metrics such as external quantum efficiency. We also discuss modeling of crosstalk between adjacent pixels and its influence on the potential for a dual-wavelength detector. Finally, we evaluate potential advances in these detectors that may occur in the near future.
Ultrafast control of the polarization state of light may enable a plethora of applications in optics, chemistry and biology. However, conventional polarizing elements, such as polarizers and waveplates, are either static or possess only gigahertz switching speeds. Here, with the aid of high-mobility indium-doped cadmium oxide (CdO) as the gateway plasmonic material, we realize a high-quality factor Berreman-type perfect absorber at a wavelength of 2.08 μm. On sub-bandgap optical pumping, the perfect absorption resonance strongly redshifts because of the transient increase of the ensemble-averaged effective electron mass of CdO, which leads to an absolute change in the p-polarized reflectance from 1.0 to 86.3%. By combining the exceedingly high modulation depth with the polarization selectivity of the perfect absorber, we experimentally demonstrate a reflective polarizer with a polarization extinction ratio of 91 that can be switched on and off within 800 fs.
The goal of this paper is to investigate full-wave simulations of realistic implementations of multifunctional nanoantenna enabled detectors (NEDs). We realize a 2×2 pixelated array structure that supports two wavelengths of operation. After designing each resonating structure independently using full-wave simulations with periodic boundary conditions mimicking the whole infinite array, we construct a supercell made of a 2×2 pixelated array with periodic boundary conditions mimicking the full NED. In the NED, each pixel comprises 10-20 nanoantennas. Our simulations account for the cross-talk between contiguous pixels. We observe that, even though there are finite extent effects, the pixels work as designed, each responding at the respective wavelength of operation. We want to stress that realistic simulations of multifunctional NEDs need to be performed to verify the design functionality by taking into account finite extent and cross-talk effects.
Three-dimensional (3D) metafilms composed of periodic arrays of silicon unit cells containing single and multiple micrometer-scale vertical split ring resonators (SRRs) per unit cell were fabricated. In contrast to planar and stacked planar structures, these 3D metafilms have a thickness t ∼ λd/4, allowing for classical thin film effects in the long wavelength limit. The infrared specular far-field scattering response was measured for metafilms containing one and two resonators per unit cell and compared to numerical simulations. Excellent agreement in the frequency region below the onset of diffractive scattering was obtained. For dense arrays of unit cells containing single SRRs, normally incident linearly polarized plane waves which do not excite a resonant response result in thin film interference fringes in the reflected spectra and are virtually indistinguishable from the scattering response of an undecorated array of unit cells. For the resonant linear polarization, the specular reflection for arrays is highly dependent on the SRR orientation on the vertical face for gap-up, gap-down, and gap-right orientations. For dense arrays of unit cells containing two SRRs per unit cell positioned on adjacent faces, the specular reflection spectra are slightly modified due to near-field coupling between the orthogonally oriented SRRs but otherwise exhibit reflection spectra largely representative of the corresponding single-SRR unit cell structures. The ability to pack the unit cell with multiple inclusions which can be independently excited by choice of incident polarization suggests the construction of dual-channel films where the scattering response is selected by altering the incident polarization.
This paper details a model for the response of a finite- or an infinite-length wire interacting with a conducting ground to an electromagnetic pulse excitation. We develop a frequency–domain method based on transmission line theory that we name ATLOG–Analytic Transmission Line Over Ground. This method is developed as an alternative to full-wave methods, as it delivers a fast and reliable solution. It allows for the treatment of finite or infinite lossy, coated wires, and lossy grounds. The cases of wire above ground, as well as resting on the ground and buried beneath the ground are treated. The reported method is general and the time response of the induced current is obtained using an inverse Fourier transform of the current in the frequency domain. The focus is on the characteristics and propagation of the transmission line mode. Comparisons with full-wave simulations strengthen the validity of the proposed method.
We demonstrate the ultrafast formation of terahertz (THz) metasurfaces through all-optical creation of spatially modulated carrier density profiles in a deep-subwavelength GaAs film. The switch-on of the transient plasmon mode, governed by the GaAs effective electron mass and electron− phonon interactions, is revealed by structured-optical pump THz probe spectroscopy, on a time scale of 500 fs. By modulating the carrier density using different pump fluences, we observe a wide tuning of the electric dipole resonance of the transient GaAs metasurface from 0.5 THz to 1.7 THz. Furthermore, we numerically demonstrate that the metasurface presented here can be generalized to more complex architectures for realizing functionalities such as perfect absorption, leading to a 30 dB modulation depth. The platform also provides a pathway to achieve ultrafast manipulation of infrared beams in the linear and, potentially, nonlinear regime.
We study the role of carrier mobility in transparent conducting oxides integrated into epsilon-near-zero modulators. High-mobility materials including CdO enable sub-micron length electroabsorption modulators through >4dB/μm extinction ratios.
We present a new approach to dielectric metasurface design that relies on a single resonator per unit cell and produces robust, high quality factor Fano resonances. Our approach utilizes symmetry breaking of highly symmetric resonator geometries, such as cubes, to induce couplings between the otherwise orthogonal resonator modes. In particular, we design perturbations that couple "bright" dipole modes to "dark" dipole modes whose radiative decay is suppressed by local field effects in the array. Our approach is widely scalable from the near-infrared to radio frequencies. We first unravel the Fano resonance behavior through numerical simulations of a germanium resonator-based metasurface that achieves a quality factor of ∼1300 at ∼10.8 μm. Then, we present two experimental demonstrations operating in the near-infrared (∼1 μm): a silicon-based implementation that achieves a quality factor of ∼350; and a gallium arsenide-based structure that achieves a quality factor of ∼600, the highest near-infrared quality factor experimentally demonstrated to date with this kind of metasurface. Importantly, large electromagnetic field enhancements appear within the resonators at the Fano resonant frequencies. We envision that combining high quality factor, high field enhancement resonances with nonlinear and active/gain materials such as gallium arsenide will lead to new classes of active optical devices.
The development of novel thermal sources that control the emission spectrum and the angular emission pattern is of fundamental importance. In this paper, we investigate the thermal emission properties of semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (SHMs). Our structure does not require the use of any periodic corrugation to provide monochromatic and directional emission properties. We show that these properties arise because of epsilon-near-zero conditions in SHMs. The thermal emission is dominated by the epsilon-near-zero effect in the doped quantum wells composing the SHM. Furthermore, different properties are observed for s and p polarizations, following the characteristics of the strong anisotropy of hyperbolic metamaterials.
Cable shielding to protect against coupling of electromagnetic radiation into a component or circuit, particularly over large frequency bands, is at times a challenging task. It is general understanding that increasing the number of shields of a cable will improve the shielding performance. However, there are situations in which a cable with multiple shields may perform similar to or in some cases worse than a cable with a single shield, and this analysis has seldom been discussed in the literature. We intend to shed more light onto this topic in this paper.
Metamaterial dielectric resonators represent a promising path toward low-loss metamaterials at optical frequencies. In this paper we utilize perturbations of high symmetry resonator geometries, such as cubes, either to overlap the electric and magnetic dipole resonances, thereby enabling directional scattering and Huygens' metasurfaces, or to induce couplings between the otherwise orthogonal resonator modes to achieve high-quality factor Fano resonances. Our results are fully scalable across any frequency bands where high-permittivity dielectric materials are available, including microwave, THz, and infrared frequencies.
Narrow-bandgap semiconductors such as alloys of InAsAlSb and their heterostructures are considered promising candidates for next generation infrared photodetectors and devices. The prospect of actively tuning the spectral responsivity of these detectors at the pixel level is very appealing. In principle, this could be achieved with a tunable metasurface fabricated monolithically on the detector pixel. Here, we present first steps towards that goal using a complementary metasurface strongly coupled to an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mode operating in the long-wave region of the infrared spectrum. We fabricate such a coupled system using the same epitaxial layers used for infrared pixels in a focal plane array and demonstrate the existence of ENZ modes in high mobility layers of InAsSb. We confirm that the coupling strength between the ENZ mode and the metasurface depends on the ENZ layer thickness and demonstrate a transmission modulation on the order of 25%. We further show numerically the expected tunable spectral behavior of such coupled system under reverse and forward bias, which could be used in future electrically tunable detectors.
This report examines bounds on the penetrant power through ports of entry into a conductive cavity. We first replace the cavity by a load and consider the maximum power transfer properties of an antenna or an aperture. We consider how limitations on the load quality factor place limits on received power. For general frequency ranges we model the backing region by means of a uniformly distributed matched load along a slot aperture and adjust its value for maximum power transfer. This result is derived in closed form using a transmission line model for the aperture. This result illustrates the reduction in received power for low frequencies with finitely conducting wall materials. At high frequencies it approaches the receiving cross section of a linear array having the slot length dimension. Next we examine a slot aperture in a conducting rectangular enclosure and determine how the cavity wall losses and resulting quality factor limit the penetrant power. Detailed simulations and experimental measurements are compared with each other and with the bounding results to assess the accuracy of the bounds. These comparisons also indicate limitations on the accuracy of the models due to perturbing influences in construction, such as bolted joints.
We investigate optical polariton modes supported by subwavelength-thick degenerately doped semiconductor nanolayers (e.g. indium tin oxide) on glass in the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) regime. The dispersions of the radiative (R, on the left of the light line) and non-radiative (NR, on the right of the light line) ENZ polariton modes are experimentally measured and theoretically analyzed through the transfer matrix method and the complex-frequency/real-wavenumber analysis, which are in remarkable agreement. We observe directional near-perfect absorption using the Kretschmann geometry for incidence conditions close to the NR-ENZ polariton mode dispersion. Along with field enhancement, this provides us with an unexplored pathway to enhance nonlinear optical processes and to open up directions for ultrafast, tunable thermal emission.
Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes provide a new path for tailoring light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. In this paper, we analyze a strongly coupled system at near-infrared frequencies comprising plasmonic metamaterial resonators and ENZ modes supported by degenerately doped semiconductor nanolayers. In strongly coupled systems that combine optical cavities and intersubband transitions, the polariton splitting (i.e., the ratio of Rabi frequency to bare cavity frequency) scales with the square root of the wavelength, thus favoring the long-wavelength regime. In contrast, we observe that the polariton splitting in ENZ/metamaterial resonator systems increases linearly with the thickness of the nanolayer supporting the ENZ modes. In this work, we employ an indium-tin-oxide nanolayer and observe a large experimental polariton splitting of approximately 30% in the near-infrared. This approach opens up many promising applications, including nonlinear optical components and tunable optical filters based on controlling the polariton splitting by adjusting the frequency of the ENZ mode.
We investigate the effect on wave propagation of array packing and electromagnetic coupling between spheres in a three-dimensional (3D) lattice of microspheres with large permittivity that exhibit strong magnetic polarizability. We report on the complex wavenumber of Bloch waves in the lattice when each sphere is assumed to possess both electric and magnetic dipoles and full electromagnetic coupling is accounted for. While for small material-filling fractions we always determine one dominant mode with low attenuation constant, the same does not happen for large filling fractions, when electromagnetic coupling is included. In the latter case we peculiarly observe two dominant modes with low attenuation constant, dominant in different frequency ranges. The filling fraction threshold for which two dominant modes appear varies for different metamaterial constituents, as proven by considering spheres made by either titanium dioxide or lead telluride. As further confirmation of our findings, we retrieve the complex propagation constant of the dominant mode(s) via a field fitting procedure employing two sets of waves (direct and reflected) pertaining to two distinct modes, strengthening the presence of the two distinct dominant modes for increasing filling fractions. However, given that one mode only, with transverse polarization, at any given frequency, is dominant and able to propagate inside the lattice, we are able to accurately treat the metamaterial that is known to exhibit artificial magnetism as a homogeneous material with effective parameters, such as the refractive index. Results clearly show that the account of both electric and magnetic scattering processes in evaluating all electromagnetic intersphere couplings is essential for a proper description of the electromagnetic propagation in lattices.
In this paper we report on a transmission-line model for calculating the shielding effectiveness of multiple-shield cables with arbitrary terminations. Since the shields are not perfect conductors and apertures in the shields permit external magnetic and electric fields to penetrate into the interior regions of the cable, we use this model to estimate the effects of the outer shield current and voltage (associated with the external excitation and boundary conditions associated with the external conductor) on the inner conductor current and voltage. It is commonly believed that increasing the number of shields of a cable will improve the shielding performance. However, this is not always the case, and a cable with multiple shields may perform similar to or in some cases worse than a cable with a single shield. We want to shed more light on these situations, which represent the main focus of this paper.
Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes arising from condensed-matter excitations such as phonons and plasmons are a new path for tailoring light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Complex spectral shaping can be achieved by creating such modes in nanoscale semiconductor layers and controlling their interaction with multiple, distinct, dipole resonant systems. Examples of this behavior are presented at midinfrared frequencies for ENZ modes that are strongly coupled to metamaterial resonators and simultaneously strongly coupled to semiconductor phonons or quantum-well intersubband transitions (ISTs), resulting in double- and triple-polariton branches in transmission spectra. For the double-polariton branch case, we find that the best strategy to maximize the Rabi splitting is to use a combination of a doped layer supporting an ENZ feature and a layer supporting ISTs, with overlapping ENZ and IST frequencies. This design flexibility renders this platform attractive for low-voltage tunable filters, light-emitting diodes, and efficient nonlinear composite materials.
We experimentally demonstrate a functional silicon metadevice at telecom wavelengths that can efficiently control the wavefront of optical beams by imprinting a spatially varying transmittance phase independent of the polarization of the incident beam. Near-unity transmittance efficiency and close to 0-2 phase coverage are enabled by utilizing the localized electric and magnetic Mie-type resonances of low-loss silicon nanoparticles tailored to behave as electromagnetically dual-symmetric scatterers. We apply this concept to realize a metadevice that converts a Gaussian beam into a vortex beam. The required spatial distribution of transmittance phases is achieved by a variation of the lattice spacing as a single geometric control parameter.
Coherent superposition of light from subwavelength sources is an attractive prospect for the manipulation of the direction, shape and polarization of optical beams. This phenomenon constitutes the basis of phased arrays, commonly used at microwave and radio frequencies. Here we propose a new concept for phased-array sources at infrared frequencies based on metamaterial nanocavities coupled to a highly nonlinear semiconductor heterostructure. Optical pumping of the nanocavity induces a localized, phase-locked, nonlinear resonant polarization that acts as a source feed for a higher-order resonance of the nanocavity. Varying the nanocavity design enables the production of beams with arbitrary shape and polarization. As an example, we demonstrate two second harmonic phased-array sources that perform two optical functions at the second harmonic wavelength (∼5μm): a beam splitter and a polarizing beam splitter. Proper design of the nanocavity and nonlinear heterostructure will enable such phased arrays to span most of the infrared spectrum.
We experimentally demonstrate efficient third harmonic generation from an indium tin oxide nanofilm (λ/42 thick) on a glass substrate for a pump wavelength of 1.4 μm. A conversion efficiency of 3.3 × 10-6 is achieved by exploiting the field enhancement properties of the epsilon-near-zero mode with an enhancement factor of 200. This nanoscale frequency conversion method is applicable to other plasmonic materials and reststrahlen materials in proximity of the longitudinal optical phonon frequencies.
Metallic nanocavities with deep subwavelength mode volumes can lead to dramatic changes in the behavior of emitters placed in their vicinity. This collocation and interaction often leads to strong coupling. Here, we present for the first time experimental evidence that the Rabi splitting is directly proportional to the electrostatic capacitance associated with the metallic nanocavity. The system analyzed consists of different metamaterial geometries with the same resonance wavelength coupled to intersubband transitions in quantum wells.
We employ both the effective medium approximation (EMA) and Bloch theory to compare the dispersion properties of semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (SHMs) at mid-infrared frequencies and metallic hyperbolic metamaterials (MHMs) at visible frequencies. This analysis reveals the conditions under which the EMA can be safely applied for both MHMs and SHMs. We find that the combination of precise nanoscale layering and the longer infrared operating wavelengths puts the SHMs well within the effective medium limit and, in contrast to MHMs, allows for the attainment of very high photon momentum states. In addition, SHMs allow for new phenomena such as ultrafast creation of the hyperbolic manifold through optical pumping. In particular, we examine the possibility of achieving ultrafast topological transitions through optical pumping which can photo-dope appropriately designed quantum wells on the femtosecond time scale.
Ultrafast optical excitation of photocarriers has the potential to transform undoped semiconductor superlattices into semiconductor hyperbolic metamaterials (SHMs). In this paper, we investigate the optical properties associated with such ultrafast topological transitions. We first show reflectance, transmittance, and absorption under TE and TM plane wave incidence. In the unpumped state, the superlattice exhibits a frequency region with high reflectance (>80%) and a region with low reflectance (<1%) for both TE and TM polarizations over a wide range of incidence angles. In contrast, in the photopumped state, the reflectance for both frequencies and polarizations is very low (<1%) for a similar range of angles. Interestingly, this system can function as an all-optical reflection switch on ultrafast timescales. Furthermore, for TM incidence and close to the epsilon-near-zero point of the longitudinal permittivity, directional perfect absorption on ultrafast timescales may also be achieved. Finally, we discuss the onset of negative refraction in the photopumped state.
We present an electrodynamic model of strongly coupled metamaterial/intersubband-transition systems that can be used to predict and maximize Rabi splittings. This model can also be used to optimize metamaterial structures that enhance second-order nonlinear processes.
(Figure Presented) We present the design, realization, and characterization of optical strong light-matter coupling between intersubband transitions within a semiconductor heterostructures and planar metamaterials in the near-infrared spectral range. The strong light-matter coupling entity consists of a III-nitride intersubband superlattice heterostructure, providing a two-level system with a transition energy of ∼0.8 eV (λ ∼1.55 μm) and a planar "dogbone" metamaterial structure. As the bare metamaterial resonance frequency is varied across the intersubband resonance, a clear anticrossing behavior is observed in the frequency domain. This strongly coupled entity could enable the realization of electrically tunable optical filters, a new class of efficient nonlinear optical materials, or intersubband-based light-emitting diodes.
We have demonstrated single-mode lasing in a single gallium nitride nanowire using distributed feedback by external coupling to a dielectric grating. By adjusting the nanowire grating alignment we achieved a mode suppression ratio of 17dB.