title: Adiabatically tapered hyperbolic metamaterials for dispersion control of high-k waves.
abstract: Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) have shown great promise in the optical and quantum communities due to their extremely large, broadband photonic density of states. This feature is a direct consequence of supporting photonic modes with unbounded k-vectors. While these materials support such high-k waves, they are intrinsically confined inside the HMM and cannot propagate into the far-field, rendering them impractical for many applications. Here, we demonstrate how the magnitude of k-vectors can be engineered as the propagating radiation passes through media of differing dispersion relations (including type II HMMs and dielectrics) in the in-plane direction. The total outcoupling efficiency of waves in the in-plane direction is shown to be on average 2 orders of magnitude better than standard out-of-plane outcoupling methods. In addition, the outcoupling can be further enhanced using a proposed tapered HMM waveguide that is fabricated using a shadowed glancing angle deposition technique; thereby proving the feasibility of the proposed device. Applications for this technique include converting high-k waves to low-k waves that can be out-coupled into free-space and creating extremely high-k waves that are quickly quenched. Most importantly, this method of in-plane outcoupling acts as a bridge through which waves can cross between the regimes of low-k waves in classical dielectric materials and the high-k waves in HMMs with strongly reduced reflective losses.
authors.affiliation: School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University , West Lafayette, Indiana United States.
authors.forename: Paul R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: West
authors.forename: Nathaniel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kinsey
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferrera
authors.forename: Alexander V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Kildishev
authors.forename: Vladimir M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Shalaev
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boltasseva
keywords: Metamaterials; glancing angle deposition; hyperbolic metamaterials; plasmonics; purcell