Anisotropic Metamaterial Optical Fibers

Abstract

Internal physical structure can drastically modify the properties of waveguides: photonic crystal fibers are able to confine light inside a hollow air core by Bragg scattering from a periodic array of holes, while metamaterial loaded waveguides for microwaves can support propagation at frequencies well below cutoff. Anisotropic metamaterials assembled into cylindrically symmetric geometries constitute light-guiding structures that support new kinds of exotic modes. A microtube of anodized nanoporous alumina, with nanopores radially emanating from the inner wall to the outer surface, is a manifestation of such an anisotropic metamaterial optical fiber. The nanopores, when filled with a plasmonic metal such as silver or gold, greatly increase the electromagnetic anisotropy. The modal solutions in anisotropic circular waveguides can be uncommon Bessel functions with imaginary orders.

15 pages, 5 figures; Published

References in corpus (4)

• Optical Hyperlens: Far-field imaging beyond the diffraction limit
• Nanowire metamaterials with extreme optical anisotropy
• Hollow-core infrared fiber incorporating metal-wire metamaterial
• Miniaturized Circular-Waveguide Probe Antennas Using Metamaterial Liners

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Experimental Verification of Below-Cutoff Propagation in Miniaturized Circular Waveguides Using Anisotropic ENNZ Metamaterial Liners
• Higher-Order Spectral Element Methods for Electromagnetic Modeling of Complex Anisotropic Waveguides
• Nanoporous alumina microtubes for metamaterial and plasmonic applications