Broadband isotropic μ-near-zero metamaterials

Natural diamagnetism, while being a common phenomenon, is limited to permeability values close to unity. Artificial diamagnetics, to the contrary, can be engineered to provide much lower values and may even possess an effective permeability close to zero. In this letter, we provide an experimental confirmation of the possibility to obtain extremely low permeability values by manufacturing an isotropic metamaterial composed of conducting cubes. We show that the practical assembly is quite sensitive to fabrication tolerances and demonstrate that permeability of about μ = 0.15 is realisable. © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Lateral forces on circularly polarizable particles near a surface

Optical forces allow manipulation of small particles and control of nanophotonic structures with light beams. While some techniques rely on structured light to move particles using field intensity gradients, acting locally, other optical forces can push particles on a wide area of illumination but only in the direction of light propagation. Here we show that spin orbit coupling, when the spin of the incident circularly polarized light is converted into lateral electromagnetic momentum, leads to a lateral optical force acting on particles placed above a substrate, associated with a recoil mechanical force. This counterintuitive force acts in a direction in which the illumination has neither a field gradient nor propagation. The force direction is switchable with the polarization of uniform, plane wave illumination, and its magnitude is comparable to other optical forces.This work has been supported, in part, by EPSRC (UK). 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Photosensitive SRR-metamaterials

We report a novel approach to design metamaterials with sign-varying nonlinear response. The metamaterial is build up with split-ring resonators loaded by photodiodes and varactor diodes. A non-monotonic frequency shift of the resonance frequency depending on incident microwave power is demonstrated. We show how the nonlinear response of such metamaterials can be directly controlled by light. © 2013 IEEE

Light coupling in microwave metamaterials

We report our recent achievements in tuning metamaterials with light. We introduce a novel approach to design metamaterials with sign-varying nonlinear response. For this purpose, we use split-ring resonators loaded by photodiodes and varactor diodes. A non-monotonic frequency shift of the resonance frequency depending on incident microwave power is demonstrated. Finally, we show how the nonlinear response of photosensitive metamaterials can be directly controlled by light coupling. © 2013 IEEE

Nonlinear interaction of meta-atoms through optical coupling

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a multi-frequency nonlinear coupling mechanism between split-ring resonators. We engineer the coupling between two microwave resonators through optical interaction, whilst suppressing the direct electromagnetic coupling. This allows for a power-dependent interaction between the otherwise independent resonators, opening interesting opportunities to address applications in signal processing, filtering, directional coupling, and electromagnetic compatibility. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC