Building epsilon near zero materials from layered uniaxial metamaterials

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Materials Science
• Electromagnetism

Background:

• Recent advances in fabrication techniques enable the creation of metamaterials with unique, unnatural properties.
• Metamaterials offer unprecedented control over electromagnetic waves.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a new scheme for designing metamaterials with zero permittivity.
• To achieve a state where all components of the dielectric tensor are approximately zero.

Main Methods:

• Employing alternate layering of thin slices of two constituent metamaterials: a uniaxial layered medium and a uniaxial nanowire array.
• Utilizing a simple optimization strategy to identify a suitable configuration.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated a candidate metamaterial configuration that closely approximates the design goal of zero permittivity.
• Successfully layered uniaxial layered media and uniaxial nanowire arrays to approach zero permittivity.

Conclusions:

• The proposed layering scheme is a viable strategy for designing metamaterials with near-zero permittivity.
• This work contributes to the development of advanced optical and photonic devices by enabling novel material properties.