Metamaterials for light rays: ray optics without wave-optical analog in the ray-optics limit

Abstract

Volumes of sub-wavelength electromagnetic elements can act like homogeneous materials: metamaterials. In analogy, sheets of optical elements such as prisms can act ray-optically like homogeneous sheet materials. In this sense, such sheets can be considered to be metamaterials for light rays (METATOYs). METATOYs realize new and unusual transformations of the directions of transmitted light rays. We study here, in the ray-optics and scalar-wave limits, the wave-optical analog of such transformations, and we show that such an analog does not always exist. Perhaps, this is the reason why many of the ray-optical possibilities offered by METATOYs have never before been considered.

10 pages, 3 figures, references updated

References in corpus (3)

• Superoscillation in speckle patterns
• Local light-ray rotation
• Imaging with parallel ray-rotation sheets

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Superoscillation in speckle patterns
• Generalized refraction using lenslet arrays
• Local light-ray rotation
• Standard and non-standard metarefraction with confocal lenslet arrays
• Geometric limits to geometric optical imaging with infinite, planar, non-absorbing sheets
• Fermat's principle with complex refractive indices and local light-ray rotation
• Experimental demonstration of a light-ray-direction-flipping METATOY based on confocal lenticular arrays