Near-field enhancement and sub-wavelength imaging in the optical region using a pair of two-dimensional arrays of metal nanospheres

Near-field enhancement and sub-wavelength imaging properties of a system comprising a coupled pair of two-dimensional arrays of resonant nanospheres are studied. The concept of using two coupled material sheets possessing surface mode resonances for evanescent field enhancement is already well established in the microwave region. This paper shows that the same principles can be applied also in the optical region, where the performance of the resonant sheets can be realized with the use of metallic nanoparticles. In this paper we present design of such structures and study the electric field distributions in the image plane of such superlens.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Backward-wave regime and negative refraction in chiral composites

Possibilities to realize a negative refraction in chiral composites in in dual-phase mixtures of chiral and dipole particles is studied. It is shown that because of strong resonant interaction between chiral particles (helixes) and dipoles, there is a stop band in the frequency area where the backward-wave regime is expected. The negative refraction can occur near the resonant frequency of chiral particles. Resonant chiral composites may offer a root to realization of negative-refraction effect and superlenses in the optical region

Effective electric and magnetic properties of metasurfaces in transition from crystalline to amorphous state

In this paper we theoretically study electromagnetic reflection, transmission, and scattering properties of periodic and random arrays of particles which exhibit both electric-mode and magnetic-mode resonances. We compare the properties of regular and random grids and explain recently observed dramatic differences in resonance broadening in the electric and magnetic modes of random arrays. We show that randomness in the particle positioning influences equally on the scattering loss from both electric and magnetic dipoles, however, the observed resonance broadening can be very different depending on the absorption level in different modes as well as on the average electrical distance between the particles. The theory is illustrated by an example of a planar metasurface composed of cut-wire pairs. We show that in this particular case at the magnetic resonance the array response is almost not affected by positioning randomness due to lower frequency and higher absorption losses in that mode. The developed model allows predictions of behavior of random grids based on the knowledge of polarizabilities of single inclusions.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, and submitted to PR

Modeling of Isotropic Backward-Wave Materials Composed of Resonant Spheres

A possibility to realize isotropic artificial backward-wave materials is theoretically analyzed. An improved mixing rule for the effective permittivity of a composite material consisting of two sets of resonant dielectric spheres in a homogeneous background is presented. The equations are validated using the Mie theory and numerical simulations. The effect of a statistical distribution of sphere sizes on the increasing of losses in the operating frequency band is discussed and some examples are shown.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Sub-wavelength imaging: Resolution enhancement using metal wire gratings

An experimental evidence of subwavelength imaging with a "lens", which is a uniaxial negative permittivity wire medium slab, is reported. The slab is formed by gratings of long thin parallel conducting cylinders. Taking into account the anisotropy and spatial dispersion in the wire medium we theoretically show that there are no usual plasmons that could be exited on surfaces of such a slab, and there is no resonant enhancement of evanescent fields in the slab. The experimentally observed clear improvement of the resolution in the presence of the slab is explained as filtering out the harmonics with small wavenumbers. In other words, the wire gratings (the wire medium) suppress strong traveling-mode components increasing the role of evanescent waves in the image formation. This effect can be used in near-field imaging and detection applications.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Waveguide containing a backward-wave slab

We have considered theoretically the waveguide properties of a plane two-layered waveguide, whose one layer is a usual magnetodielectric (forward-wave medium), but another one is a slab of so-called backward-wave material (BW-material), whose both permittivity and permeability are negative. We have analyzed the properties of eigenwaves in this waveguide. In particular, it was found that there exist waves of both TE and TM polarizations, whose fields decay exponentially from the interface of the two slabs inside both layers, and their slow-wave factor tends to infinity at small frequencies. Thus, this waveguiding system supports super-slow waves with extremely short wavelengthes, as compared to the free-space wavelength and the cross section size. Other peculiarities of the spectrum are also discussed