Effect of microscopic disorder on magnetic properties of metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper investigates how microscopic disorder affects the magnetic and wave propagation properties of composite metamaterials, revealing that even small deviations can significantly alter their left-handed behavior at terahertz and optical frequencies.

Contribution

It demonstrates that weak microscopic disorder can substantially modify metamaterials' magnetic response and wave propagation, highlighting the importance of disorder control in design.

Findings

10% parameter deviation suppresses wave propagation

Disorder can create additional weak resonant lines

Small disorder significantly alters magnetic properties

Abstract

We analyze the effect of microscopic disorder on the macroscopic properties of composite metamaterials and study how weak statistically independent fluctuations of the parameters of structure elements can modify their collective magnetic response and left-handed properties. We demonstrate that even a weak microscopic disorder may lead to a substantial modification of the metamaterial magnetic properties, and 10% deviation in the parameters of the microscopic resonant elements may lead to a substantial suppression of wave propagation in a wide frequency range. A noticeable suppression occurs also if more than 10% of resonant magnetic elements possess strongly different properties, but in this latter case the defects can create an additional weak resonant line. These results are of the key importance for characterizing and optimizing the novel composite metamaterials with left-handed properties at terahertz and optical frequencies.