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Optics Letters

Reflective interferometry for optical metamaterial phase measurements

Kevin P. O’Brien, Norberto Daniel Lanzillotti-Kimura, Haim Suchowski, Boubacar Kanté, Yong-Shik Park, Xiaobo Yin, Xiang Zhang

Published Sep 26, 2012• 31 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The unambiguous determination of optical refractive indices of metamaterials is a challenging task for device applications and the study of new optical phenomena. We demonstrate here simple broadband phase measurements of metamaterials using spectrally and spatially resolved interferometry. We study the phase response of a π-shaped metamaterial known to be an analog to electromagnetically induced transparency. The measured broadband interferograms give the phase delay or advance produced by the metamaterial in a single measurement. The presented technique offers an effective way of characterizing optical metamaterials including nonlinear and gain-metamaterial systems.

DOI
10.1364/ol.37.004089

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The unambiguous determination of optical refractive indices of metamaterials is a challenging task for device applications and the study of new optical phenomena. We demonstrate here simple broadband phase measurements of metamaterials using spectrally and spatially resolved interferometry. We study the phase response of a π-shaped metamaterial known to be an analog to electromagnetically induced transparency. The measured broadband interferograms give the phase delay or advance produced by the metamaterial in a single measurement. The presented technique offers an effective way of characterizing optical metamaterials including nonlinear and gain-metamaterial systems.
We present a simple experimental technique based on diffraction for determining the complex refractive index of metamaterials, and demonstrate it with metamaterials that consist of detuned electrical dipoles (DEDs), mimicking the dressed-state picture of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The metamaterials are realized by fabricating lithographically defined gold nanorods on a silica substrate, covered with a ~ 15 µm thick polymer layer, and feature EIT-like transmission spectra with transparency windows centered at wavelengths near ~ 800 nm. The refractive indices are determined for wavelengths where the DED metamaterials exhibit enhanced transmission. Thereby, we experimentally demonstrate normal dispersion in the transmission window and estimate the group refractive index to ~ 3.6. Furthermore, finite-element simulations are conducted on a monolayer of DED unit cells, which similarly exhibit the EIT-like behavior in terms of enhanced transmission revealed in the transmission spectra. Simulated transmission and reflection spectra are utilized for calculations of the real and imaginary parts of the metamaterial refractive index, showing consistent trends with those obtained experimentally.
Recently reported metamaterial (MM) analogs of electromagnetically induced reflectance (EIR) enable a unique route to endow classical optical structures with aspects of quantum optical systems. This method opens up many fascinating prospects on novel optical components, such as slow light units, highly sensitive sensors, and nonlinear devices. Here we designed and simulated a microwave MM made from aluminum thin film to mimic the EIR system. High reflectance of about 99 percent and also a large group index at the reflectance window of about 243 are demonstrated, which mainly arise from the enhanced coupling between radiative and nonradiative elements. The interaction between the elements of the unit cell, induced directly or indirectly by the incident electromagnetic wave, leads to a reflectance window, resembling the classical analog of EIR. This reflectance window, caused by the coupling of radiative-nonradiative modes, can be continuously tuned in a broad frequency regime. The strong normal phase dispersion in the vicinity of this reflectance window results in the slow light effect. This scheme provides an alternative way to achieve tunable slow light in a broad frequency band and can find important applications in active and reversibly tunable slow light devices.
In this work, using finite-difference time-domain method, we propose and numerically demonstrate a novel way to achieve electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) phenomenon in the reflection spectrum by stacking two different types of coupling effect among different elements of the designed metamaterial. Compared with the conventional EIT-like analogues coming from only one type of coupling effect between bright and dark meta-atoms on the same plane, to our knowledge the novel approach is the first to realize the optically active and precise control of the wavelength position of EIT-like phenomenon using optical metamaterials. An on-to-off dynamic control of the EIT-like phenomenon also can be achieved by changing the refractive index of the dielectric substrate via adjusting an optical pump pulse. Furthermore, in near infrared region, the metamaterial structure can be operated as an ultra-high resolution refractive index sensor with an ultra-high figure of merit (FOM) reaching 3200, which remarkably improve the FOM value of plasmonic refractive index sensors. The novel approach realizing EIT-like spectral shape with easy adjustment to the working wavelengths will open up new avenues for future research and practical application of active plasmonic switch, ultra-high resolution sensors and active slow-light devices.
Metamaterials, or artificial materials with optical properties not known for natural materials, have recently been used to demonstrate unusual optical phenomena, such as negative refraction, perfect lenses, subwavelength components, and electromagnetic invisibility cloaks. Most of the metamaterials designed to date are periodic structures containing a single resonating element in each unit cell, such as a split-ring resonator (SRR), a cutwire, or a slab-wire pair [1]. In this contribution, we demonstrate that a metamaterial with two coupled SRRs can exhibit an effect reminiscent of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), a coherent process normally observed in three-level atomic media [2]. Due to this process, a small transparency window with low absorption appears in the spectral response of the metamaterial. Simultaneously, extremely steep normal dispersion is observed in the transparency window, which is useful for slow-light applications.
We theoretically investigate the classical analog of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) in a planar metamaterial at optical frequency, which originates from destructive and constructive interference between dark and radiative elements.The metamaterial consists of two coupled resonators with different geometries.An EIT-like transparent window with low absorption is observed and found to be strongly affected by resonant states of the resonators.The transition between the EIT and EIA is achieved by changing the split width and coupling distance.The absorption is enhanced up to 2.5 times compared with the dipolar case.The excitation of the dark mode is very important for EIT-and EIA-like responses of the proposed metamaterial.The EIT and EIA phenomena offer a potential method for manipulating electromagnetic response in metamaterial-based devices.