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Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and Thz Frequency Photonic Components

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Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and Thz Frequency Photonic Components Active and Passive Electronic Components Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and THz Frequency Photonic Components Guest Editors: Yalin Lu, Weili Zhang, and Min Qiu Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and THz Frequency Photonic Components Active and Passive Electronic Components Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and THz Frequency Photonic Components Guest Editors: Yalin Lu, Weili Zhang, and Min Qiu Copyright © 2007 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. This is a special issue published in volume 2007 of “Active and Passive Electronic Components.” All articles are open access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Editor-in-Chief T. S. Kalkur, University of Colorado, USA Associate Editors Abu Khari A’ain, Malaysia John Lindsey, USA K. Prasad, New Zealand Spartak Gevorgian, Sweden Yicheng Lu, USA Tian-Ling Ren, China Ashok K. Goel, USA Yalin Lu, USA Jose’ A. Siqueira Dias, Brazil S. B. Krupanidhi, India Chem Nayar, Australia Tai-Bor Wu, Taiwan BrockJ.LaMeres,USA Adam Pawlikiewicz, USA Fahrettin Yakuphanoglu, Turkey Contents Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and THz Frequency Photonic Components,YalinLu, Weili Zhang, and Min Qiu Volume 2007, Article ID 80839, 2 pages Plasmonics: Manipulating Light at the Subwavelength Scale, Cheng-Ping Huang and Yong-Yuan Zhu Volume 2007, Article ID 30946, 13 pages Resonant Excitation of Terahertz Surface Plasmons in Subwavelength Metal Holes, Weili Zhang, Abul K. Azad, and Jiaguang Han Volume 2007, Article ID 40249, 8 pages Effects of Microstructure Variations on Macroscopic Terahertz Metafilm Properties, John F. O’Hara, Evgenya Smirnova, Abul K. Azad, Hou-Tong Chen, and Antoinette J. Taylor Volume 2007, Article ID 49691, 10 pages Extraordinary Transmission and Enhanced Emission with Metallic Gratings Having Converging-Diverging Channels, Arvind Battula, Yalin Lu, R. J. Knize, Kitt Reinhardt, and Shaochen Chen Volume 2007, Article ID 24084, 8 pages Transmission Properties of Metallic Grating with Subwavelength Slits in THz Frequency Region, Dong Liang, Qirong Xing, Zhen Tian, Changlei Wang, Weili Zhang, Jianqiang Gu, Yanfeng Li, Lu Chai, Qingyue Wang, and Aleksei Zheltikov Volume 2007, Article ID 63139, 4 pages Compact Optical Waveguides Based on Hybrid Index and Surface-Plasmon-Polariton Guidance Mechanisms, Min Yan and Min Qiu Volume 2007, Article ID 52461, 7 pages Subwavelength-Diameter Silica Wire and Photonic Crystal Waveguide Slow Light Coupling, Ziyang Zhang, Ulf Andersson, and Min Qiu Volume 2007, Article ID 78602, 5 pages The Structural Engineering Strategy for Photonic Material Research and Device Development, Yalin Lu Volume 2007, Article ID 17692, 7 pages Hindawi Publishing Corporation Active and Passive Electronic Components Volume 2007, Article ID 80839, 2 pages doi:10.1155/2007/80839 Editorial Metamaterials, Plasmonics, and THz Frequency Photonic Components Yalin Lu,1 Weili Zhang,2 and Min Qiu3 1 Department of Physics, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO 80840, USA 2 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078-5032, USA 3 Department of Microelectronics and Applied Physics, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Electrum 229, 164 40 Kista, Sweden Received 20 April 2008; Accepted 20 April 2008 Copyright © 2007 Yalin Lu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. An emerging area of interest in application is the terahertz “Resonant excitation of terahertz surface plasmons in sub- (THz) technology covering the frequency range from 0.1 to wavelength metal holes” by W. Zhang et al. Effect of the 30 THz. Potential applications of such THz technology are hole shape, dimension, material selection, incident electro- widespread, including military security, medical diagnosis, magnetic (EM) polarization, and metal film thickness on the coherent imaging, material analysis, environmental protec- resonant THz transmission is studied by the state-of-the-art tion, and space science. Development of new photonic com- THz time-domain spectroscopy, which reveals an extended ponents dynamically functioning over such THz frequencies potential over even using those poor metals such as lead. is a subarea of major currently ongoing advanced research In more details, the third paper “Effects of microstruc- effort and is very crucially relying on the availability of new ture variations on macroscopic terahertz metafilm prop- materials, new physical mechanisms, new device designs, and erties” by J. O’Hara et al. discusses the effect of slightly new fabrications/approaches. Effective and efficient integra- varying the split-ring microstructure design on macroscopic tion of new metamaterials with unique surface plasmonic THz metallic film properties including transmission and resonance behaviors, for example, could create a full basket reflection. This leads the research toward the more practical of “new-conception” THz photonic components bearing side on generating new THz photonic component designs as new operation mechanisms including negative refraction, potential optical filters, modulators, and switches. lossless transmission, dynamic tunability, and so forth. In Moving forward to make THz photonic devices, the this special issue focusing on both advanced metamaterial fourth paper “Extraordinary transmission and enhanced research and novel plasmonic study, we have invited a few emission with metallic gratings having converging-diverging papers that address such major issues, summarize some channels” by A. Battula et al. investigates the extraordi- of those recent progresses, and discuss those emerging nary transmission behavior when changing the hole from opportunities. the direct through to a new converging-diverging channel The first paper of this special issue “Plasmonics: manip- (CDC) shape. By varying the gap size at the throat of the ulating light at the subwavelength scale” by C.-P. Huang and CDC, the spectral locations of the transmission resonance Y.-Y. Zhu summarizes recent progresses in studying surface bands can be shifted close to each other and have the plasmon-polariton waves, mainly relating to plasmonic transmittance in a very narrow energy band. This indicates a waveguide and plasmonic transmission. The former is able great potential to make THz optical filters having the needed to guide the light in a thin metallic surface layer with flat-top and narrow transmittance band. subwavelength lateral dimensions, and the later to support Experimentally, the transmission behavior of THz wave the enormous transmission when featuring a metal with a in a one-dimensional metallic grating investigated by the subwavelength hole array. unique time-domain THz spectroscopy is discussed in the The discussion covers generally the broad photonic spec- fifth paper “Transmission properties of metallic grating trum. More focusing, resonant excitation of surface plas- with subwavelength slits in THz frequency region” by D. mons and the extraordinary transmission specifically over Liang et al. which opens up the potential of making highly the THz frequencies are reviewed in the second paper polarization-discriminative photonic components. 2 Active and Passive Electronic Components The next two papers (the sixth and the seventh) “Compact optical waveguides based on hybrid index and surface-plasmon-polariton guidance mechanisms” by M. Yan and M. Qiu, and “Subwavelength-diameter silica wire and photonic crystal waveguide slow light coupling” by Z. Zhang et al. discuss the interesting optical propagation phenomena in two special waveguides: one is defined by a combination of the conventional index confinement and the surface-plasmon-plariton guiding mechanism, and the other is an integration of a subwavelength silica nanowire with a photonic crystal waveguide. The former expects a significant loss reduction when the light is beyond the diffraction limit (using those nanoscale guiding cores for visible wavelengths, e.g.) and the latter for slowing the light for potential applications including compact delay lines for photonic signal processing, dispersion management, and so forth. The final paper of this special issue “The structural engi- neering strategy for photonic material research and device development” by Y. Lu actually touches both fabrication and material selection issues during making those THz photonic components, with the goal to enhance the efficiency in both structural and compositional optimizations by using a so- called structural and compositional combinatorial strategy. Details about the strategy are introduced, and its applications in making photonic sensors, dielectric tunable materials, and negative refraction superlattices are also discussed. Yalin Lu Weili Zhang Min Qiu Hindawi Publishing Corporation Active and Passive Electronic Components Volume 2007, Article ID 30946, 13 pages doi:10.1155/2007/30946 Review Article Plasmonics: Manipulating Light at the Subwavelength Scale Cheng-Ping Huang and Yong-Yuan Zhu National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China Received 21 August 2007; Accepted 10 October 2007 Recommended by Yalin Lu The coupling of light to collective oscillation of electrons on the metal surface allows the creation of surface plasmon-polariton wave. This surface wave is of central interest
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