Metamaterial slab-based super-absorbers and perfect nanodetectors for single dipole sources

TL;DR

This paper introduces metamaterial slab-based super-absorbers and nanodetectors capable of achieving near-perfect absorption of single dipole sources, with potential applications in nanoscale optical devices.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the use of double negative metamaterial slabs to create highly efficient super-absorbers and nanodetectors, including configurations without nanoparticles, advancing nanoscale optical absorption technology.

Findings

Up to 100% absorption of a single dipole source achieved.

DNG slabs can serve as perfect absorbers for plane and divergent beams.

Simple DNG slabs can focus radiation at the nanoscale.

Abstract

We propose to use double negative (DNG) metamaterial slabs to build effective super-absorbers and perfect nanodetectors for single divergent sources. We demonstrate by numerical simulations that an absorbing nanoparticle properly placed inside a DNG slab back-covered with a perfect electric conductor or perfect magnetic conductor mirror can absorb up to 100% radiation energy of a single dipole source placed outside the slab. Furthermore, we also show that even the simple DNG slab without any absorbing nanoparticle could be used as a perfect absorber for both plane and divergent beams. The proposed systems may focus the radiation in nanoscale and thus have applications in optical nanodevices for a variety of different purposes.