Metamaterials & Photonics

Shuang Zhang

Department of Physics
Department of EEE

shuzhang@hku.hk

Office: Room 521, CYM Physics Building

Office hour: Fridays 15:30-17:30

 Textbooks not required

A few recommendations:

• Wenshan Cai and Vladimir Shalaev, Optical Metamaterials:

Fundamentals and Applications, Springer; 2010th edition
• Lucas Novotny and Bert Hecht, Principles of Nano-Optics, 2nd edition,
Cambridge University Press
• Stefan A. Maier, Plasmonics : Fundamentals and applications,
Springer

2
 Assessment

• 50% homework
(two or three sets of homework)

• 50% Final exam

 What is Photonics?
Technology employing light to encode, process and
transmit information

Examples:
–Light sources (LEDs, lasers etc)
–Optical fibres
–Optical receivers

Applications:
–Optical communications
– Display and illumination
–Optical information processing
–Optical computing
– Sensing
4
 Light interaction at different scales

a >> 𝜆 Ray optics, diffraction effect can be neglected. Manipulation

of light rely on refraction and reflection, and shadowing
effect, i.e no need to consider the wave nature of light.

Examples: Lenses, prisms, mirrors, mask

Eikonal equation
 Light interaction at different scales

a~𝜆 Diffraction optics, interference, wave nature start to manifest.

Examples: Gratings, photonic crystals, zone plates, phased

array Radar, X-ray diffraction

Photonic crystals Zone plate

gratings
 Light interaction at different scales

a << 𝜆 Nanophotonics: Light interaction with particles much

smaller than its free space wavelength. Plasmonic particles or
particles with very large dielectric constants, such as silicon (~11).

When subwavelength particles are assembled together – composite

material or metamaterials.

1 um
 Aim and Objectives of the course
Aim:
•To provide a comprehensive overview of the major aspects of modern
photonics, with special focus on novel trends and applications.

Learning outcomes of the course:

•Understand materials’ and metamaterials’ optical properties in depth.

•Understand Propagating and Localized Surface Plasmon polaritons and

their applications.

•Understand sub-wavelength light manipulation and artificial media

(nanoplasmonics, metamaterials, photonic crystals), and light matter
interactions.

• Understand the physics and mechanism of some optoelectronic devices,

such as LEDs and semiconductor lasers.

8
 Materials to be covered
Recap of some electromagnetic basics

Effective medium theory

Plasmonics – surface plasmon, localized plasmon, coupled plasmonic

systems.

Metamaterials – Negative refraction, superimaging, chirality etc

Topological metamaterials and spin orbital coupling of light

Metasurfaces – how they works; meta-devices; nonlinear metasurfaces

Photonic crystals and coupled waveguide array

LEDs and semiconductor lasers

 Metamaterials history: Early days

1968 – Veselago assumed a material with negative index

What can you do with negative index?

• Negative refraction

• Backward propagation

• Flat lens

• Reversed Doppler & Cerenkov

10
 The Fish in the Swimming Pool

n=1.3
n=-1.3

11
 Diffraction limit and Super imaging lens

air air
n0=1 n=-1 n0=1
q0 q

Propagating waves

Object n=-1 image

plane plane

Conventional microscope Evanescent waves 12

Pendry, PRL, 2000

 Problem : Such material does not exist

n = ± eµ n < 0 ® e < 0, µ < 0

Sir John Pendry

1996: “radiation absorption property did not come from
the molecular, or chemical structure of the material, i. e., the
carbon per se. This property came from the long and thin,
physical shape of the carbon fibers”

1999: creating the magnetic properties of conductors by

structure

13
 Negative index in Microwaves

David Smith

2000 – First realization of simultaneously negative e and µ

!""#$% &'()*$+,-./)*(0*'./$.1$234$

14
 Negative Index at optics

Double negative “Fishnet” Shalaev (2005) – “ single negative”

(2005) § Pairs of metal strips
§ Both e, µ /,50*'6, § Negative e, positive µ
§>'5?,($&@4 § 2,50*'6,$(,07$8/9$+:,$*.$7.))
§ ;,(<$7.=$1'5:(,$.1$-,('

Valentine, Zhang (2008) – “bulk” Negative index

Direct measurement

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Invisibility

16
 Science of Invisibility

Transparent materials Arbitrary objects

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 Transformation optics and optical cloak
J. Pendry
2006 - propose conformal mapping to control E-M waves

l Invariance in Maxwell’s equations

l Transforms a physical space into a desired “virtual space”

l spatially varying material properties within transformed region

U. Leonhardt

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 Realization of cloaking device by Metamaterials

2006 – Cloaking of Microwaves (D. Smith & Schurig)

ε ij , µ ij

D. R. Smith
Û

19
 What else can Metamaterials do?
• Symmetry breaking

• All kind of transformation optics

• Enhancement of light-matter interaction and nonlinear

optics phenomena

20
 Metasurfaces
Metasurfaces – 2D Metamaterials
for controlling light propagation

(a)

N Yu et al, Science, 2011 Sun et al, Nature Materials, L. Huang, SZ et al, Nano Letters,
X. Ni et al, Science, 2012 2012 (2012)

(b) 80 =1 incidence
(c)
60
Anomalous,m=1
40

Observation angle ( )

Observation angle ( )
Anomalous
20 Ordinary,m=1

-20 -
Ordinary,m=-1
Ordinary
-40 -
Anomalous,m=-1
-60 -

-80 Experiment -

-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 21

80
Incident angle i( )
Monticone et al, PRL, 2013 Pfeiffer et al, PRL, 2013 1
(d) 80 =-1 incidence (
 Metasurface devices
Metalens
Vortex generation

Holography Nonlinear optics

Plasmonics: High speed + small size
 Photonic crystals

• Periodic arrangement of dielectric structures in the order of wavelength

• Light propagation in photonic crystal similar to electrons in crystals

• Inherit the key concepts from quantum waves in crystals: band

structures, effective mass, tunneling, topological order …
 Coupled Waveguide Array

• Mimicking the tight binding model in quantum system

• Time is replaced by propagation distance, perfect
platform to study time-evolution
• Ready to incorporate PT symmetry
 Recap of E&M theory
• Maxwell Equations

• Dielectric functions of insulators and

metals

• Local field correction and Effective

medium theory
 Maxwell’s equations - Summary
Maxwell’s 𝛻 ⋅ 𝑫 = 𝜌!"# (divergence)
𝛻⋅𝑩=0
equations in
macroscopic 𝜕𝑩 𝜕𝑫
𝛻×𝑬 = − 𝛻×𝑯 = + 𝑱𝒆𝒙𝒕 (curl)
media 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡

• Maxwell’s equations define the fields that are generated by currents and
charges in matter
• Do not describe how these currents and charges are generated 27
 Gauss to SI Conversion
Gauss Unit SI Unit
E
D
𝝆
J
P
B
H
M
𝛆 𝛆/𝛆0
𝛍 𝛍/𝛍0 Constitutive equations
𝜀 = 𝜀! 𝜀" 𝜇 = 𝜇! 𝜇"
𝛘e 𝛘e/4𝛑
Gaussian unit:
𝛘m 𝛘m/4𝛑
Only a single constant needed (c)
𝞂 𝞂/4𝛑𝛆0 All the fields (E,D,H,B) have the same unit
Constitutive equations more symmetrical
 Source-free Wave equation
𝜕𝑩 𝜕𝑫
𝛻 ⋅ 𝑫 =0 𝛻⋅𝑩=0 𝛻×𝑬 = − 𝛻×𝑯 =
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡

Source-free:

29
 Source-free Wave equation
Aim: Need to obtain differential equations that only depend on either 𝑬 or 𝑩.
#𝑩
Apply curl on both sides of 𝛻×𝑬 = − :
#%
𝜕𝑩 𝜕𝜇! 𝜇" 𝑯 𝜕𝑯 𝜕 𝛻×𝑯
𝛻×𝛻×𝑬 = −𝛻× = −𝛻× = −𝜇! 𝜇" 𝛻× = −𝜇! 𝜇"
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑡
#𝑫
Now we can substitute in, 𝛻×𝑯 = and by applying the vector identity:
#%
'
𝜕'𝑫
𝛻 𝛻 ⋅ 𝑬 − 𝛻 𝑬 = −𝜇! 𝜇" '
𝜕𝑡

From 𝛻 ⋅ 𝑫 = 0 ⇒ 𝜀! 𝜀" 𝛻 ⋅ 𝑬 = 0 ⇒ 𝛻 ⋅ 𝑬 = 0, the above equation reduces to:

'𝑬 '
𝜕 1 𝜕'𝑬
𝛻 ' 𝑬 = 𝜀! 𝜀" 𝜇! 𝜇" ' ⇒ 𝛻 ' 𝑬 = 𝜀! 𝜇! 𝜀" 𝜇" = 1/𝑐 '
𝜕𝑡 𝑐" 𝜕𝑡 '

Assuming harmonic time-dependence: 𝑬 𝒓, 𝑡 = 𝑬 𝒓 𝑒 ()*% , then:

'
1
𝛻 ' 𝑬 − 𝜀! 𝜇! −𝑖𝜔 ' 𝑬 = 0
𝑐"
'
𝜔 '
𝛻 𝑬 + 𝜀! 𝜇! 𝑬=0 30
𝑐"
 Helmholtz equation - Summary
𝜔 '
𝛻 '𝑬 + 𝜀( 𝜇( 𝑬=0
𝑐)
𝑘)'
And similarly for 𝑯: 𝑘'
𝜔 ' Note that:
𝛻 ' 𝑯 + 𝜀( 𝜇( 𝑯=0 𝑘! = 𝜔⁄𝑐! = 2𝜋⁄𝜆!
𝑐) 𝑘 = 𝜔 𝜀" 𝜇" /𝑐! = 𝑛𝜔⁄𝑐! =
2𝜋𝑛⁄𝜆!
which can be re-written as:

𝛻 ' 𝑬 + 𝑘 ' 𝑬 = 0 and 𝛻 '𝑯 + 𝑘 '𝑯 = 0

Helmholtz equations (Wave equation)

𝜔 '
Dispersion relation '
𝑘 = 𝜀! 𝜇!
𝑐" 31