Metamaterials and Transformation Optics
Abstract
The report outlines the PI s month of agreed time in the USA (talks at Berkeley, UCSD, and several conferences) and collaborations with US researchers David Smith and Xiang Zhang. The main advance of this year s research is extend the analytical work in transformation optics (relating complex systems to simpler systems with the same spectral properties) to singular 3d objects such as touching spheres, which gives rise to strong enhancement of local fields and thus nonlinear phenomena, opening the possibility of eg single-molecule detectors. The analytic solutions of these systems facilitate a quantitative understanding of the systems and qualitative appreciation of how the enhancement comes about. For example, they used this technique to calculate the Van der Waals forces between two nearly-touching nanospheres. Resulting in much more accurate predictions than other approximations. Future steps include calculation of heat flow between particles due to Van der Waals forces. A concerning effect is the nonlocality of the dielectric response, in which charge is slightly spread through a material rather than accumulating purely on the surface; the team arrived at a simple approximation and helps increase the understanding of subnanometre regime in optics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 2014
- Accession Number
- ADA602461
Entities
People
- John B. Pendry
Organizations
- Imperial College London