Discretely guided electromagnetic effective medium

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel electromagnetic medium made of subwavelength coaxial waveguides that can control wave propagation with high precision, enabling advanced applications including visible-range metamaterials.

Contribution

It presents a new effective medium design using an array of coaxial waveguides for precise electromagnetic wave manipulation across a broad frequency range.

Findings

Decomposes incident waves into discrete components

Propagates components without frequency cut-off

Enables metamaterial functionalities in visible frequencies

Abstract

A material comprised of an array of subwavelength coaxial waveguides decomposes incident electromagnetic waves into spatially discrete wave components, propagates these components without frequency cut-off, and reassembles them on the far side of the material. The propagation of these wave components is fully controlled by the physical properties of the waveguides and their geometrical distribution in the array. This allows for an exceptional degree of control over the electromagnetic response of this effective medium, with numerous potential applications. With the development of nanoscale subwavelength coaxial waveguides, these applications (including metamaterial functionality) can be enabled in the visible frequency range.