Bloch vector dependence of the plasma frequency in metallic photonic crystals

We show that the plasma frequency in wire photonic crystals depends upon the Bloch vector. An accurate formula is given.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.

Comment on "Large negative lateral shifts from the Kretschmann-Raether configuration with left-handed materials" Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 221102, 2005

The negative shifts seen by Wang and Zhu are not due to the excitation of surface plasmons but to leaky modes of the slab propagating backward. Provided the characteristics of the LHM slab are chosen correctly, it is shown that a leaky surface plasmon can actually be excited using the KR configuration

Cylindrical Invisibility Cloak with Simplified Material Parameters is Inherently Visible

It was proposed that perfect invisibility cloaks can be constructed for hiding objects from electromagnetic illumination (Pendry et al., Science 312, p. 1780). The cylindrical cloaks experimentally demonstrated (Schurig et al., Science 314, p. 997) and proposed (Cai et al., Nat. Photon. 1, p. 224) have however simplified material parameters in order to facilitate easier realization as well as to avoid infinities in optical constants. Here we show that the cylindrical cloaks with simplified material parameters inherently allow the zeroth-order cylindrical wave to pass through the cloak as if the cloak is made of a homogeneous isotropic medium, and thus visible. To all high-order cylindrical waves, our numerical simulation suggests that the simplified cloak inherits some properties of the ideal cloak, but finite scatterings exist.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Homogenization of nonlocal wire metamaterial via a renormalization approach

It is well known that defining a local refractive index for a metamaterial requires that the wavelength be large with respect to the scale of its microscopic structure (generally the period). However, the converse does not hold. There are simple structures, such as the infinite, perfectly conducting wire medium, which remain non-local for arbitrarily large wavelength-to-period ratios. In this work we extend these results to the more realistic and relevant case of finite wire media with finite conductivity. In the quasi-static regime the metamaterial is described by a non-local permittivity which is obtained analytically using a two-scale renormalization approach. Its accuracy is tested and confirmed numerically via full vector 3D finite element calculations. Moreover, finite wire media exhibit large absorption with small reflection, while their low fill factor allows considerable freedom to control other characteristics of the metamaterial such as its mechanical, thermal or chemical robustness.Comment: 8 pages on two columns, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.