The Physics and Applications of Superconducting Metamaterials

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 – 3:15pm
Reiss 502
Steven Anlage
University of Maryland, Department of Physics

The optical properties of materials with a negative index of refraction were first considered theoretically by Victor Veselago in 1967. He predicted that such materials would show negative refraction (reversing the properties of many classical optical elements), flat lens imaging with no optical axis, reversed Doppler Effect, and reversal of radiation pressure. It was later predicted that these materials would also produce super-resolution images of near-field sources with arbitrarily precise resolution, under ideal conditions. We shall briefly review experimental progress in creating such materials. Super-resolution imaging, cloaking, and many other proposed applications of these materials are limited by losses. We present our results on developing low-loss superconducting metamaterials with unique electromagnetic properties. One interesting new application of metamaterials is demonstration of the classical analog of electromagnetically-induced transparency. Here superconducting metamaterial ‘atoms’ can be used to create a narrow transmission window with enhanced group delay for passing electromagnetic waves.

Host: Paola Barbara