Negative-index metamaterials: looking into the unit cell.
With their potential for spectacular applications, like superlensing and cloaking, metamaterials are a powerful class of nanostructured materials. All these applications rely on the metamaterials acting as a homogeneous material. We investigate a negative index metamaterial with a phase-sensitive near-field microscope and measure the optical phase as a function of distance. Close to the metamaterial we observe extremely large spatial phase variations within a single unit cell which vanish on a 200 nm length scale from the sample. These deviations of a state-of-the-art metamaterial from a homogeneous medium can be important for nanoscale applications.
Center for Nanophotonics, FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. burresi@lens.unifi.it
Matteo
M
Burresi
Daniela
D
Diessel
Dries
D
van Oosten
Stefan
S
Linden
Martin
M
Wegener
L
L
Kuipers