PEOPLE

Research Summary:

Metamaterials have emerged over the past decade as a vibrant new field of research in optics and electromagnetism generally. Entirely new avenues of research have been opened through access to such properties as negative refraction. Recently a powerful theoretical tool has emerged which provides the key to exploiting the extraordinary material properties on offer. Transformation Optics has its origins in the general theory of relativity and gives the metamaterial specifications required to rearrange electromagnetic field configurations at will. It does this by representing the field distortions as a warping of the space in which they exist. In its simplest form the theory tells how we can flow field lines around a given obstacle and thus provide a "cloak of invisibility". More sophistication applications give a prescription for a "perfect" lens. Ordinary materials derive their electromagnetic properties from the constituent atoms and molecules. The macroscopic response we observe is an average over the locally fluctuating fields and provided that there are many molecules within a cubic wavelength the average is well defined and we can speak of a collective response in terms of the electrical permittivity and the magnetic permeability.

Keywords:

Nanoscale Electromagnetism, Negative Refractive Index, Cloak Of Invisibility, Metamaterials, Plasmonics, Cloak Of Invisibility, Metamaterials, Plasmonics

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