event
Thursday 22 Nov 2018: NEST Seminar: Novel optical effects in hyperbolic metamaterials
Anatoly V. Zayats - Department of Physics and London Centre for Nanotechnology, King’s College London
Newman Red 13:30-14:30
The development of dielectric and plasmonic metamaterials and metasurfaces has led to numerous opportunities in designing unusual optical properties and applications. Hyperbolic metamaterials is a class of anisotropic metamaterials which can be constructed in all frequency ranges from UV to RF. Due to their specific isofrequency surfaces, they support high wavevector modes and are crucial for achieving high-resolution imaging, subwavelength waveguiding, enhanced nonlinearities and broadband Purcell factors of spontaneous emission. The optical properties of such metamaterials can be adjusted over a wide spectral range by geometrical tuning of the constituents forming a metamaterial.
In this talk, we will discuss linear and nonlinear optical properties of hyperbolic metamaterials based on plasmonic nanorods. In particular, approaches to achieving active and tunable metamaterial platform will be presented for engineering of the enhanced second-order and third order (Kerr-type) nonlinearities. The unique combination of strong anisotropy and high nonlinearity allows achieving nonlinear control over light polarisation of transmitted or reflected light. The effect of nonlocal optical response on local density of states and a broadband Purcell effect enhancement will be briefly discussed. Using metamaterial approach to designing nonlinear optical properties opens many new opportunities and applications in nonlinear optics.
