Broadband surface-wave transformation cloak
- Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou (China)
- Nanyang Technological Univ. (Singapore)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou (China); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Guiding surface electromagnetic waves around disorder without disturbing the wave amplitude or phase is in great demand for modern photonic and plasmonic devices, but is fundamentally difficult to realize because light momentum must be conserved in a scattering event. A partial realization has been achieved by exploiting topological electromagnetic surface states, but this approach is limited to narrow-band light transmission and subject to phase disturbances in the presence of disorder. Recent advances in transformation optics apply principles of general relativity to curve the space for light, allowing one to match the momentum and phase of light around any disorder as if that disorder were not there. This feature has been exploited in the development of invisibility cloaks. An ideal invisibility cloak, however, would require the phase velocity of light being guided around the cloaked object to exceed the vacuum speed of light—a feat potentially achievable only over an extremely narrow band. In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally show that the bottlenecks encountered in previous studies can be overcome. We introduce a class of cloaks capable of remarkable broadband surface electromagnetic waves guidance around ultrasharp corners and bumps with no perceptible changes in amplitude and phase. These cloaks consist of specifically designed nonmagnetic metamaterials and achieve nearly ideal transmission efficiency over a broadband frequency range from 0+ to 6 GHz. Finally, this work provides strong support for the application of transformation optics to plasmonic circuits and could pave the way toward high-performance, large-scale integrated photonic circuits.
- Research Organization:
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001299
- OSTI ID:
- 1347983
- Journal Information:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 112, Issue 25; ISSN 0027-8424
- Publisher:
- National Academy of SciencesCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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