Tailoring Metallodielectric Structures for Super Resolution and Superguiding Applications in the Visible and Near IR Ranges

Abstract

We discuss propagation effects in realistic, transparent, metallo-dielectric photonic band gap structures in the context of negative refraction and super-resolution in the visible and near infrared ranges. In the resonance tunneling regime, we find that for transverse-magnetic incident polarization, field localization effects contribute to a waveguiding phenomenon that makes it possible for the light to remain confined within a small fraction of a wavelength, without any transverse boundaries, due to the suppression of diffraction. This effect is related to negative refraction of the Poynting vector inside each metal layer, balanced by normal refraction inside the adjacent dielectric layer: The degree of field localization and material dispersion together determine the total momentum that resides within any given layer, and thus the direction of energy flow. We find that the transport of evanescent wave vectors is mediated by the excitation of quasi-stationary, low group velocity surface waves responsible for relatively large losses. As representative examples we consider transparent metallo-dielectric stacks such as Ag/TiO2 and Ag/GaP and show in detail how to obtain the optimum conditions for high transmittance of both propagating and evanescent modes for super-guiding and super resolution applications across the visible and near IR ranges. Finally, we study the influence of gain on super-resolution. We find that the introduction of gain can compensate the losses caused by the excitation of surface plasmons, improves the resolving characteristics of the lens, and leads to gain-tunable super-resolution.

References in corpus (6)

• Directed sub-wavelength imaging using a layered metal-dielectric system
• Sub-wavelength imaging at optical frequencies using canalization regime
• Optical gain removes absorption and increases resolution in a near-field lens
• Imaging the Near Field
• Negative refraction and sub-wavelength imaging using transparent metal-dielectric stacks
• Second harmonic generation from metallo-dielectric multilayer photonic band gap structures

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• Transmission function properties for multi-layered structures: Application to super-resolution
• Semiconductor-based superlens for sub-wavelength resolution below the dif-fraction limit at extreme ultraviolet frequencies
• Energy considerations for a superlens based on metal/dielectric multilayers
• Fourier Optics approach to imaging with sub-wavelength resolution through metal-dielectric multilayers
• Harmonic generation and energy transport in dielectric and semiconductors at visible and UV wavelengths: the case of GaP
• Enhancement and Inhibition of Transmission from metal gratings: Engineering the Spectral Response
• Engineering the point spread function of layered metamaterials
• Hybrid surface waves in semi-infinite metal-dielectric lattices
• Dyakonov surface waves in lossy metamaterials
• High-subwavelength-resolution imaging of multilayered structures consisting of alternating negative-permittivty and dielectric layers with flattened transmission curves