Strong Spatial Dispersion in Time-Modulated Dielectric Media

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective medium theory for time-modulated dielectric media, revealing spatial and temporal dispersion effects and their implications for designing tunable metamaterials.

Contribution

It introduces a novel effective medium description for time-modulated dielectrics, highlighting the role of spatial dispersion and its physical consequences.

Findings

Effective dielectric function includes spatial and temporal dispersion.

Weak dispersion approximation leads to resonant, isotropic magnetodielectric behavior.

Time modulation enables dynamic tuning of metamaterials.

Abstract

We present an effective medium description of time-modulated dielectric media. By taking the averaged fields over one modulation period, the relationship between them is derived, defining therefore the different constitutive parameters. In the most general situation, it is found that the effective material is described by means of a spatially and temporally dispersive transverse dielectric function and a constant longitudinal dielectric function. It has been also found that the frequency dependence in the former is weak, in comparison with its wavenumber-dependence (spatial dispersion). Different physical consequences of this spatial dispersion are discussed, with special emphasis in the weak dispersion approximation, limit in which it is found that the effective material behaves as a resonant and isotropic magnetodielectric medium with no additional longitudinal mode, as it is commonly found in spatially dispersive materials. Time-dependent media opens therefore an alternative way of designing dynamically tunable metamaterials.