Abstract
By the process of homogenization, judiciously designed nanocomposite materials can offer unprecedented degrees of material enhancement and/or novel material properties that may be usefully exploited in nanophotonic applications. Recently, there have been significant developments in the theory of such homogenized nanocomposite materials (HNMs), within the context of linear bianisotropic scenarios for particulate nanocomposites. These developments involve: the incorporation of depolarization dyadics, which represent component particles of nonzero volume, and the implementation of the strong-property-fluctuation theory wherein scattering interactions between neighboring component particles are treated on a statistical basis. Four recent areas of application are notable: (i) HNMs that support the propagation of plane waves with negative phase velocity (while their component materials do not); (ii) HNMs that support Voigt wave propagation (while their component materials do not); (iii) modeling the infiltration of certain sculptured thin films with a view to optical sensing applications; and (iv) simulation of the electromagnetic properties of vacuum in curved spacetime via HNMs as Tamm mediums. Forward homogenization is implemented in applications (i) and (ii); inverse homogenization is implemented in application (iv); and both forward and inverse homogenization are implemented in application (iii).
Original language | English |
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Article number | 051001 |
Number of pages | 25 |
Journal | Journal of nanophotonics |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sept 2011 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- strong-property-fluctuation theory
- Bruggeman
- Maxwell Garnett
- extended depolarization dyadic
- metamaterials
- inverse homogenization
- PROPERTY-FLUCTUATION THEORY
- NEGATIVE PHASE-VELOCITY
- EXTENDED MAXWELL-GARNETT
- VOIGT WAVE-PROPAGATION
- SCULPTURED THIN-FILMS
- BIANISOTROPIC HOMOGENIZED COMPOSITES
- DIELECTRIC-MAGNETIC MEDIA
- ELECTRON-ENERGY-LOSS
- REFRACTIVE-INDEX
- PARTICULATE COMPOSITE