Paper
1 May 2012 Optical pulse frequency conversion inside transformation-optical metamaterials
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
Based on the analogy between the Maxwell equations in complex metamaterials and the free-space Maxwell equations on the background of an arbitrary metric, transformation optics allows for the design of metamaterial devices using a geometrical perspective. This intuitive geometrical approach has already generated various novel applications within the elds of invisibility cloaking, electromagnetic beam manipulation, optical information storage, and imaging. Nevertheless, the framework of transformation optics is not limited to three-dimensional transformations and can be extended to four-dimensional metrics, which allow for the implementation of metrics that occur in general relativistic or cosmological models. This enables, for example, the implementation of black hole phenomena and space-time cloaks inside dielectrics with exotic material parameters. In this contribution, we present a time-dependent metamaterial device that mimics the cosmological redshift. Theoretically, the transformation-optical analogy requires an innite medium with a permittivity and a permeability that vary monotonically as a function of time. We demonstrate that the cosmological frequency shift can also be reproduced in more realistic devices, considering the fact that practical devices have a nite extent and bound material parameters. Indeed, our recent numerical results indicate that it is possible to alter the frequency of optical pulses in a medium with solely a modulated permittivity. Furthermore, it is shown that the overall frequency shift does not depend on the actual variation of the permittivity. The performance of a nite frequency converter is, for example, not aected by introducing the saw tooth evolution of the material parameters. Finally, we studied the eect of the introduction of realistic metamaterial losses and, surprisingly, we found a very high robustness with respect to this parameter. These results open up the possibility to fabricate this frequency converting device with currently available metamaterials [V. Ginis, P. Tassin, B. Craps, and I. Veretennico, Opt. Express 18, 5350{5355 (2010)1].
© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Vincent Ginis, Philippe Tassin, Ben Craps, Jan Danckaert, and Irina Veretennicoff "Optical pulse frequency conversion inside transformation-optical metamaterials", Proc. SPIE 8423, Metamaterials VII, 84231F (1 May 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.922600
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KEYWORDS
Metamaterials

Maxwell's equations

Dielectrics

Electromagnetism

Free space optics

Electromagnetic radiation

Frequency conversion

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