METAMATERIALS

Student: Roşian Ioana Mirela

IV th
year, group 2342, TST
 Teacher: Dr.Ing. Emil Voiculescu
CONTENTS

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………3

2. Electromagnetic Spectrum……………………………………………….4

3. Metamaterials…………………………………………………………….5

3.1. Negative Refractive Index……………………………………….5

3.2. Double Negative Metamaterials………………………………….7

3.3. Split Ring Resonator……………………………………………..8

4. Cloaking devices………………………………………………………….9

5. Applications……………………………………………………………..10

6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………….11

7. References……………………………………………………………….11

2
 1. INTRODUCTION

Metamaterials are artificial media structured on a size scale smaller than the
wavelength of external stimuli. Whereas conventional materials derive their
electromagnetic characteristics from the properties of atoms and molecules,
metamaterials enable us to design our own “atoms” and thus access new
functionalities, such as invisibility and imaging, with unlimited resolution.

The next stage of this technological revolution will be the development of

active, controllable, and nonlinear metamaterials for optical data processing and
quantum information applications. Metamaterials are expected to have an impact
across the entire range of technologies where electromagnetic radiation is used.
There are important issues for the development and future of metamaterials,
including the optical transformation, effective medium theory for periodic
structures, broadband and low-loss metamaterials, rapid design of metamaterials
and potential applications.

Figure 1.

3
 2. ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of

electromagnetic radiation. The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object is the
characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that
particular object.
The electromagnetic spectrum extends from low frequencies used for
modern radio to gamma radiation at the short-wavelength end, covering
wavelengths from thousands of kilometers down to a fraction of the size of an
atom. The long wavelength limit is the size of the universe itself, while it is
thought that the short wavelength limit is in the vicinity of the Planck length,
although in principle the spectrum is infinite and continuous.

Figure 2. Electromagnetic spectrum

Radio Waves are used for radio broadcasts, amateur radio, television, and
mobile phones. Different parts of the radio spectrum have been allocated to the
various services. They have a much longer wavelength that light waves. The
longest waves are several kilometers in length.
Microwaves have such a short wavelength that they are very easily
absorbed by water. This is why they are used in microwave ovens. What happens
is that when the water in your dinner absorbs the microwaves, the energy of the
microwaves is converted into heat: it makes the water molecules vibrate faster.
Infrared radio/light waves have a very short wavelength; their wavelength
is longer than visible light. It can be detected by special infra-red film.

4
 In the visible spectrum our eyes sense the different wavelengths in this
band as colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.
The ozone layer in our Earth's atmosphere helps to protect us from most of
the harmful effects of this short wavelength light. Only some of the Sun's
ultraviolet light reaches the ground, and those waves that reach us can cause
sunburn. Ultraviolet light penetrates the skin, interacts with molecules, and can
tear them apart. UV light has a shorter wavelength (more energy) than visible
light, but a high energy.
X-rays are very energetic light waves that are produced in space, usually by
violent processes such as a black hole gobbling up gas streaming in from a
companion star. These wavelengths do not get through our atmosphere, so
scientists use high altitude satellites to study X-ray light in space. X-Rays have so
much energy and such a short wavelength that they can go right through our
bodies. However, they cannot get through bone as easily as they can get through
muscle. This is because the bones contain so much Calcium.
Gamma rays are the most energetic wavelengths of light, and they have the
shortest wavelengths.

3. METAMATERIALS

Metamaterials are artificial materials engineered to have properties that

may not be found in nature. Metamaterials usually gain their properties from
structure rather than composition, using small inhomogeneities to create effective
macroscopic behavior. .
The primary research in metamaterials investigates materials with negative
refractive index. Negative refractive index materials appear to permit the creation
of superlenses which can have a spatial resolution below that of the wavelength. In
other work, a form of 'invisibility' has been demonstrated at least over a narrow
wave band with gradient-index materials. Although the first metamaterials were
electromagnetic acoustic and seismic metamaterials are also areas of active
research.

3.1. Negative refractive index

The greatest potential of metamaterials is the possibility to create a

structure with a negative refractive index, since this property is not found in any
non-synthetic material.
Picture a straw in a glass half-filled with water as in Figure 3. Looking at
the glass from the side the spoon apparently seems to break at the water surface
and continue inside the liquid being slightly shifted to the side and slightly wider
than in air. The difference between the ‘optical density’ of water and air that is
responsible for this phenomenon is usually expressed in terms of the materials’

5
refractive indices: nliquid =1.3 > nair =1. While for all naturally occurring materials
the refractive index is positive, let us now imagine the liquid in the glass to have a
negative refractive index, say nliquid = -1.3. Then the straw would again appear to
be slightly shifted at the interface but this time spectacularly appear to continue
inside the liquid as if it had suddenly been shifted ‘the wrong way’. It is precisely
this unusual light-bending property akin to negative refractive index media that
would be required to realize an electromagnetic cloak.

Figure 3. Positive an negative refractive index

Metamaterials with negative n have numerous interesting properties:

• Snell's law (n1sinθ1 = n2sinθ2), but as n2 is negative, the rays will be
refracted on the same side of the normal on entering the material.
• The Doppler shift is reversed: that is, a light source moving toward an
observer appears to reduce its frequency.
• Cherenkov radiation points the other way.

Figure 4.
Conventional vs
Left Handed material

3.2. Double negative metamaterials

6
 In double negative metamaterials (DNG), both permittivity and
permeability are negative resulting in a negative index of refraction. DNGs are
also referred to as negative index metamaterials (NIM). Other terminologies for
DNGs are "left-handed media", "media with a negative refractive index", and
"backward-wave media", along with other nomenclatures.
In optical materials, if both permittivity ε and permeability µ are positive
this results in propagation in the forward direction. If both ε and µ are negative, a
backward wave is produced. If ε and µ have different polarities, then this does not
result in wave propagation. Mathematically, quadrant II and quadrant IV have
coordinates (0,0) in a coordinate plane where ε is the horizontal axis, and µ is the
vertical axis.
In 1968 Victor Veselago published a paper theorizing plane wave
propagation in a material whose permittivity and permeability were assumed to be
simultaneously negative. In such a material, he showed that the phase velocity
would be antiparallel to the direction of pointing vector. This is contrary to wave
propagation in natural occurring materials. In the years 2000 and 2001, papers
were published about the first demonstrations of an artificial material that
produced a negative index of refraction. By 2007, research experiments which
involved negative refractive index had been conducted by many groups.
Studies have elucidated applications for negative refractive index materials.
These applications are phase compensation with electrically small resonators,
negative angles of refraction, subwavelength waveguides, backward wave
antenna, Cherenkov radiation, photon tunneling, and enhanced electrically small
antenna. The concept of continuous wave excitation is a key component of these
studies to obtain the negative index refraction using DNG media, and then to
introduce the results of research into these applications. DNG metamaterials are
innately dispersive, so their permittivity ε, permeability µ, and refraction index n,
will alter with changes in frequency. To date, DNGs have only been demonstrated
as artificially constructed materials.
It is worth noting that passive single negative (SNG) and double negative
(DNG) metamaterials are inherently dispersive. Therefore, for passive
metamaterials, the real parts of the material parameters are most often negative
only over a certain band of frequencies and, thus, their values can shift, or vary,
significantly with the changes in frequency. As a result, one should, in general,
take into account the frequency dependence of such material parameters. Based in
the original problem of a dispersive nature, but traveling a somewhat different
avenue, are active metamaterials. These are intended to have the capability to
exhibit negative parameters over a somewhat larger band of frequencies.

3.3. Split Ring Resonator

7
 A split-ring resonator (SRR) is a component part of a Negative index
metamaterial (NIM), also known as Double negative metamaterials (DNG) or
Left-handed medium (LHM). They are also component parts of other types of
metamaterial such as Single Negative metamaterial (SNG). SRRs are also used for
research in Terahertz metamaterials, Acoustic metamaterials, and Metamaterial
antennas. A single cell SRR has a pair of enclosed loops with splits in them at
opposite ends. The loops are made of nonmagnetic metal like copper and have a
small gap between them. The loops can be concentric, or square, and gapped as
needed.
A magnetic flux penetrating the metal rings will induce rotating currents in
the rings, which produce their own flux to enhance or oppose the incident field
(depending on the SRRs resonant properties). This field pattern is dipolar. Due to
splits in the rings the structure can support resonant wavelengths much larger than
the diameter of the rings. This would not happen in closed rings. The small gaps
between the rings produces large capacitance values which lower the resonating
frequency, as the time constant is large. The dimensions of the structure are small
compared to the resonant wavelength. This results in low radiative losses, and very
high quality factors.

At frequencies below the resonant frequency, the real part of the magnetic
permeability of the SRR becomes large (positive), and at frequencies higher than
resonance it will become negative. This negative permeability can be used with the
negative dielectric constant of another structure to produce negative refractive
index materials.

4. CLOAKING DEVICES

8
 Cloaking devices are advanced stealth technologies still in development
that will cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly
invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. Fictional cloaking devices
have been used as plot devices in various media for many years, but developments
in scientific research show that real-world cloaking devices can obscure objects
from at least one wavelength of EM emissions. Scientists already use artificial
materials called metamaterials to bend light around an object.

Figure 4.
Bending light

Metamaterials direct and control the propagation and transmission of

specified parts of the light spectrum. and could be utilized to render an object
seemingly invisible. Metamaterial cloaking, derived from transformation optics,
describes the process of shielding something from view by controlling
electromagnetic radiation. Objects in the defined location are still present, but
incident waves are guided around them without being affected by the object itself

Figure 5.
A metamaterial sends rays of
light cascading around a ball,
rendering it invisible.

9
 To effectively manipulate an electromagnetic wavelength of any kind, the
metamaterial used has to be smaller than the wavelength. Since microwaves'
wavelengths are measured in centimeters, scientists have the technology to create
metamaterials small enough to manipulate them, moving waves around an object.
A stealth bomber sheathed in the right layer of metamaterials, for example, could
be invisible to radar. The shield would be visible, but radar wouldn't be able to
detect the plane.
Making an entire aircraft invisible to the naked eye is a bigger challenge.
For one thing, we don't currently have the technology to manufacture materials on
the small scale required to manipulate light waves. Light wavelengths are
measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter), and the metamaterials needed to
block light must be even smaller than that. Another challenge is that a
metamaterial cloaking device would have to be arranged to manipulate light on the
entire visible spectrum, because different colors exist on different wavelengths.
And lastly, a cloaking device would plunge a person on the inside into darkness, as
the light that would normally reach him or her would be diverted around the
cloaking device.

5. APLICATIONS

Metamaterials have become a new subdiscipline within physics and

electromagnetism (especially optics and photonics).
Potential applications of metamaterials are diverse and include remote
aerospace applications, sensor detection and infrastructure monitoring, smart solar
power management, public safety, radomes, high-frequency battlefield
communication and lenses for high-gain antennas, improving ultrasonic sensors,
and even shielding structures from earthquakes.
The research in metamaterials is interdisciplinary and involves such fields as
electrical engineering, electromagnetics, solid state physics, microwave and
antennae engineering, optoelectronics, classic optics, material sciences,
semiconductor engineering, nanoscience and others.

10
 6. CONCLUSION

Metamaterials represent an exciting emerging research are that promises to

bring about important technological and scientific advancements in different areas
such as telecommunications, radars and defense, nanolithography with light,
microelectronics, medical imaging and much more.

7. REFERENCES

• The road ahead for metamaterials -N.I. Zheludev, Science 328, 582 (2010)
• Tie Jun Cui, David R. Smith, Ruopeng Liu – Metamaterials –Theory,
Design , and Applications – Springer 2010
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking_device
• http://science.howstuffworks.com/invisible-tank1.htm

11