Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Optical cloaking with metamaterials

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 224–227 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Artificially structured metamaterials have enabled unprecedented flexibility in manipulating electromagnetic waves and producing new functionalities, including the cloak of invisibility based on coordinate transformation1,2,3. Unlike other cloaking approaches4,5,6, which are typically limited to subwavelength objects, the transformation method allows the design of cloaking devices that render a macroscopic object invisible. In addition, the design is not sensitive to the object that is being cloaked. The first experimental demonstration of such a cloak at microwave frequencies was recently reported7. We note, however, that that design7 cannot be implemented for an optical cloak, which is certainly of particular interest because optical frequencies are where the word ‘invisibility’ is conventionally defined. Here we present the design of a non-magnetic cloak operating at optical frequencies. The principle and structure of the proposed cylindrical cloak are analysed, and the general recipe for the implementation of such a device is provided.

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Coordinate transformation and structure of the non-magnetic optical cloak.
Figure 2: Material parameters ɛr, ɛθ and μz of the proposed cloak operating at λ = 632.8 nm.
Figure 3: Unit cell for full-wave FE simulations of effective parameters.
Figure 4: FE simulations of the magnetic-field mapping around the cloaked object with TM illumination at λ = 632.8 nm.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Pendry, J. B., Schurig, D. & Smith, D. R. Controlling electromagnetic fields. Science 312, 1780–1782 (2006).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. Leonhardt, U. Optical conformal mapping. Science 312, 1777–1780 (2006).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. Leonhardt, U. Notes on conformal invisibility devices. New J. Phys. 8, 118 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Alu, A. & Engheta, N. Achieving transparency with plasmonic and metamaterial coatings. Phys. Rev. E 72, 016623 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Garcia de Abajo, F. J., Gomez-Santos, G., Blanco, L. A., Borisov, A. G. & Shabanov, S. V. Tunneling mechanism of light transmission through metallic films. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 067403 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Milton, G. W. & Nicorovici, N.-A. P. On the cloaking effects associated with anomalous localized resonance. Proc. R. Soc. A 462, 3027–3059 (2006).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Schurig, D. et al. Metamaterial electromagnetic cloak at microwave frequencies. Science 314, 977–980 (2006).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Cummer, S. A., Popa, B.-I., Schurig, D., Smith, D. R. & Pendry, J. Full-wave simulations of electromagnetic cloaking structures. Phys. Rev. E 74, 036621 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Zhou, J. et al. Saturation of the magnetic response of split-ring resonators at optical frequencies. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 223902 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Klein, M. W., Enkrich, C., Wegener, M., Soukoulis, C. M. & Linder, S. Single-slit split-ring resonators at optical frequencies: limits of size scaling. Opt. Lett. 31, 1259–1261 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Podolskiy, V. A., Sarychev, A. K. & Shalaev, V. M. Plasmon modes in metal nanowires and left-handed materials. J. Nonlin. Phys. Mater. 11, 65–74 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Kildishev, A. V. et al. Negative refractive index in optics of metal–dielectric composites. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23, 423–433 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Shalaev, V. M. Nonlinear Optics of Random Media: Fractal Composites and Metal-Dielectric Films (Springer, Berlin, 2000).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. Chettiar, U. K. et al. From low-loss to lossless optical negative-index materials. CLEO/QELS-06 Annual Meeting Proceedings, Long Beach, California, May 21–26 (2006).

    Google Scholar 

  15. Klar, T. A., Kildishev, A. V., Drachev, V. P. & Shalaev, V. M. Negative-index metamaterials: Going optical. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quant. Electron. 12, 1106–1115 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. van de Hulst, H. C. Light Scattering by Small Particles (Dover, New York, 1981).

    Google Scholar 

  17. Aspnes, D. E. Optical properties of thin films. Thin Solid Films 89, 249–262 (1982).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Bruggeman, D. A. G. Berechnung verschiedener physikalischer konstanten von heterogenen substanzen. Ann. Phys. 416, 636–679 (1935).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by ARO-MURI award 50342-PH-MUR.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 47907, USA

    Wenshan Cai, Uday K. Chettiar, Alexander V. Kildishev & Vladimir M. Shalaev

Authors
  1. Wenshan Cai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Uday K. Chettiar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Alexander V. Kildishev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Vladimir M. Shalaev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vladimir M. Shalaev.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary figure 1 (PDF 260 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cai, W., Chettiar, U., Kildishev, A. et al. Optical cloaking with metamaterials. Nature Photon 1, 224–227 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.28

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.28

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing