History of Photonic Crystals and Metamaterials
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TECHNICAL NOTEBOOK I BacK to BASICS BACK TO BASICS: History of photonic crystals and metamaterials Costas M. SOUKOULIS 1,2 We will review the history of photonic crystals and overview 1 Ames Laboratory and Department of Physics, Iowa State University, of the theoretical and experimental efforts in obtaining a Ames, Iowa, USA photonic bandgap, a frequency band in three-dimensional 2 Institute of Electronic Structure dielectric structures in which electromagnetic (EM) waves & Laser (IESL), FORTH, are forbidden, is presented. Many experimental groups Heraklion, Crete, Greece [email protected] all over the world still employ this woodpile structure to fabricate PCs at optical wavelengths, waveguides, enhance nanocavities, and produce nanolasers with a low threshold limit. We have been focused on a new class of materials, the so-called metamaterials (MMs) or negative-index materials, which exhibit highly unusual electromagnetic properties and hold promise for new device applications. Metamaterials can be designed to exhibit both electric and magnetic resonances that can be separately tuned to occur in frequency bands from megahertz to terahertz frequencies, and hope-fully to the visible region of the EM spectrum. ovel artificial materials (pho- However, many serious obstacles must at the same time, are easier to fabri- tonic crystals (PCs), MMs, be overcome before the impressive pos- cate (see Fig. 1). We thus modified the Nnonlinear optical MMs, op- sibilities of MMs, especially in the op- tical MMs containing gain media, tical regime, become real applications. graphene, chiral optical MMs and plasmonics) enable the realization of innovative electromagnetic (EM) properties unattainable in naturally History of photonic existing materials. These materials, crystals: from diamond characterized here as MMs, have been to woodpile structures in the foreground of scientific interest Shortly after the introduction of the in the last ten years. There has been a concept of photonic band-gap (PBG) truly amazing amount of innovation materials [1,2], our group at Iowa during the last few years and more is State/Ames Lab discovered the first yet to come. Clearly, the field of PCs diamond PBG structure that can exhi- and MMs can develop breaking tech- bit a complete 3D photonic gap [1,2]. nologies for a plethora of applications, Complete gaps were found in the two where control over light is a prominent diamond structures. However, this dia- ingredient – among them telecommu- mond dielectric structure is not easy Figure 1. A “ball and the stick” model of the diamond structure, viewed from an nications, solar energy harvesting, bio- to fabricate, especially at the micron angle such that the channels along a [110] logical and THz imaging and sensing, and submicron length for infrared or direction are observable. Shrinking the size optical isolators, nanolasers, quantum optical devices. Therefore, it is impor- of the “balls”, while keeping the “sticks” emitters, wave sensors, switching and tant to find new periodic structures and “3-cylinder” diamond structure with “air-cylinder”. polarizers, and medical diagnostics. that possess full photonic gaps, but, 50 Photoniques Special EOS Issue 2 ❚ www.photoniques.com https://doi.org/10.1051/photon/2018S350 BacK to BASICS I TECHNICAL NOTEBOOK bandgaps. Many experimental groups around the world still use the woodpile structure to fabricate photonic crystals at optical wavelengths. These designs have been instrumental in bringing forward the revolutionary fields of pho- tonic crystals [1-2], negative diffraction, and metamaterials [4-5], extending the Figure 3. Short rods in the diamond realm of electromagnetics while ope- structure are replaced by an equivalent ning exciting new applications. large horizontal rod, which is a layer-by- layer structure or woodpile structure [1]. Figure 2. Rod connected diamond History of metamaterials: structure with rods colored along the from microwaves vertical direction. to optics structures diamond structure to obtain other infrared wavelengths. Structures made Microwave metamaterials photonic crystal structures easier to by advanced silicon processing [3] and fabricate—hence, the introduction wafer fusion techniques operate at Our group at Armes Lab demonstrated of a layer-by-layer (or woodpile) ver- near-infrared wavelengths. It also was negative refraction properly designed sion of diamond. Figure 2 shows the fabricated by direct laser writing to ope- PCs in the microwave regime and rod-connected diamond structure rate at infrared and near-infrared wave- also demonstrated sub-wavelength with rods colored along the [100] ver- lengths. Inverse woodpile PCs made resolution of λ/3. We fabricated a tical direction. Figure 3 presents the from silicon by CMOS-compatible left-handed material (LHM) with the woodpile design – short rods in the deep reactive-ion etching were the first highest negative-index transmission diamond structure are replaced by an nanostructures to reveal spontaneous peak corresponding to a loss of only equivalent large horizontal rod. emission inhibition. In another ap- 0.3 dB/cm at 4 GHz frequencies. We The layer-by-layer (woodpile) struc- proach, “3-cylinder” photonic crystals established that split-ring resonators ture was first fabricated in the mi- were fabricated by a deep X-ray litho- (SRR) also have a resonant electric res- crowave regime by stacking alumina graphy technique in polymers (see Fig. ponse, in addition to their magnetic cylinders that demonstrated a full 5) and the transmission spectra show a response. The SRR electric response is 3D photonic bandgap at 12-14 GHz. 3D photonic bandgap centered at 125 cut-wire like and can be demonstrated We fabricated this woodpile structure µm (2.4 THz) in good agreement with by closing the gaps of the SRRs, thus and demonstrated a full 3D photonic theoretical calculations. destroying the magnetic response. We bandgap at 100 and 500 GHz. The These photonic crystal designs (dia- studied both theoretically and experi- woodpile structure was then fabri- mond lattice [1,2] and the woodpile mentally the transmission properties cated by microelectronic fabrication structure [3], respectively) provided of a lattice of SRRs for different inci- technology (see Fig. 4) and operated at the largest completed 3D photonic dent polarizations. Photoniques Special EOS Issue 2 www.photoniques.com ❚ Photoniques Special EOS Issue 2 51 https://doi.org/10.1051/photon/2017S201 TECHNICAL NOTEBOOK I BacK to BASICS magnetic-dipole resonance via the magnetic field of the light and via the electric field. The latter can be ac- complished under normal incidence of light with respect to the substrate – which was much easier for these ear- ly experiments. We varied the lattice constant, opened and closed the slit and thereby unambiguously showed the presence of the predicted magnetic resonance at around 100 THz frequen- Figure 4. Electron-microscope cies, equivalent to 3 µm wavelength [4]. image of a “woodpile” photonic crystal made by silicon with a Figure 5. The “three-cylinder” photonic crystal We published our experimental re- complete band gap at 12 µm [1]. made from negative tone resist [1]. sults on miniaturized gold SRR arrays, which showed a magnetic resonance at We showed that as one decreases the and can be easily measured for perpen- twice the frequency, i.e., at around 200 size of the SRR, the scaling breaks down dicular propagation. A simple unifying THz, equivalent to 1.5 µm wavelength and the operation frequency saturates at circuit approach offered clear intuitive [4]. By experiments performed under some value. We will come back to this as well as quantitative guidance for the oblique incidence of light, again loosely important point below. We suggested design and optimization of negative-in- speaking, we not only coupled to the a new 3D left-handed material design dex optical metamaterials SRR via the electric field of light, but that gives an isotropic negative index of also via its magnetic field. Only this refraction. This design has not been fa- Optical metamaterials coupling can be mapped onto an effec- bricated yet. We introduced new designs tively negative magnetic permeability. that were fabricated and tested at GHz In the optical transmission expe- We reached the limit of size scaling frequencies. These new designs were very riments on very small samples, we by further miniaturized SRRs (see useful in fabricating negative-index ma- took advantage of the fact that, loo- Fig. 6). Thus, the LC frequency should terials at THz and optical wavelengths sely speaking, one can couple to the also scale inversely proportional to size. 52 Photoniques Special EOS Issue 2 ❚ www.photoniques.com https://doi.org/10.1051/photon/2018S350 BacK to BASICS I TECHNICAL NOTEBOOK Figure 6. The operation frequency of magnetic metamaterials increased rapidly. The structures operating at 1, 6 and 100 THz frequency, respectively, were fabricated in 2004, and the one at 200 THz in 2005. It does not though. At frequencies hi- bringing one close to the edge of vali- gher than the damping rate, the elec- dity of describing these structures by trons in the metal develop a 90-degrees using effective material parameters. phase lag with respect to the driving elec- Nevertheless, our optical experiments tric field of the light. Our work showed and the retrieval of effective parameters that this limit is reached at around 900 suggested the possibility of obtaining a nm eigenwavelength – unfortunately negative magnetic permeability