More Light From Metamaterials

[Kazi Taufiqur Rahman]

A material that manipulates light in unusual ways could lead to a whole variety of exotic devices, including microscopes capable of seeing inside cells, optical circuits for quantum computers, and invisibility cloaks.

The material in question is a hyperbolic metasurface, a two-dimensional type of metamaterial with a negative index of refraction that bends light in directions it would not normally travel, sending it along a hyperbola rather than an ellipse. One difficulty with metamaterials is that they often contain metals that absorb photons, limiting the distance light can travel to a few hundred nanometers. Diffraction, in which light bends around objects in its path, can also distort a lightwave in a metamaterial, limiting the reach of a light-based signal.

[saikat07]

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