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Metamaterials at the University of Southampton and Beyond Journal of Optics PAPER • OPEN ACCESS Related content - Roadmap on optical metamaterials Metamaterials at the University of Southampton Augustine M Urbas, Zubin Jacob, Luca Dal Negro et al. and beyond - Metamaterial, plasmonic and nanophotonic devices Francesco Monticone and Andrea Alù To cite this article: Nikolay I Zheludev 2017 J. Opt. 19 084009 - Roadmap on plasmonics Mark I Stockman, Katrin Kneipp, Sergey I Bozhevolnyi et al. View the article online for updates and enhancements. Recent citations - Composite Circular Split Ring Resonator (CSRR)-based Left-handed Metamaterial for C- and Ku- band application Tayaallen Ramachandran et al - The century of metamaterials Sergei Tretyakov et al This content was downloaded from IP address 152.78.209.172 on 20/08/2019 at 15:26 Journal of Optics J. Opt. 19 (2017) 084009 (18pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8986/aa74d4 Metamaterials at the University of Southampton and beyond Nikolay I Zheludev Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, United Kingdom The Photonics Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore E-mail: [email protected] Received 19 November 2016, revised 29 April 2017 Accepted for publication 24 May 2017 Published 21 July 2017 Invited Contribution to the Special Issue ‘The History of Metamaterials’. Abstract At the University of Southampton, research on metamaterials started in 2000 with a paper describing a metallic microstructure, comprising an ensemble of fully metallic ‘molecules’. In the years since then, metamaterials have evolved from an approach for designing unusual electromagnetic properties by structuring matter at the sub-wavelength scale to become a universal paradigm for active functional media with optical properties on demand at any given point in time and space. Metamaterials are now recognized as a promising enabling technology and one of the most buoyant and exciting research disciplines at the crossroads between photonics and nanoscience. Many ‘made in Southampton’ concepts have influenced the global research community, and we are now working in collaboration with our sister research centre in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In this article, I provide a historical overview of the metamaterials research field, from early studies to recent developments through the lens of the Southampton group, and discuss promising future directions. Keywords: metamaterials, nanophotonics, University of Southampton, Nanyang Technological University (Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal) Introduction refers to artificial materials with electromagnetic properties on demand [2, 3]. Electromagnetic metamaterials can not only be The metamaterial paradigm, without using this now fashionable designed to give certain static characteristics to the electro- term, was articulated by Richard Feynman in 1959, stating ‘Up to magnetic space, but now work is being done on developing now, we have been content to dig in the ground to find minerals dynamic metamaterials that can provide desired electromagnetic K What would happen if we could arrange the atoms one by one characteristics at a given point of time and space. Why are the way we want them? K when we have some control of the metamaterials so interesting? They can be fabricated top down, in arrangement of things on a small scale we will get an enormously particular using the tools and processes of nanotechnology, they greater range of possible properties that substances can have, and can have designer resonances and prescribed permittivity and of different things that we can do’ [1]. In essence, metamaterials permeability, they can have engineered electromagnetic response are all about new functionalities that can be achieved with con- symmetries and can localize light, creating strong concentrations ventional materials by arranging them on a small scale. It has of electromagnetic energy. Metamaterials can also exhibit the proved to be an extremely powerful concept. profound nonlocality of electromagnetic response (large meta- Indeed, metamaterial studies have become one of the most molecules, comparable in size with the wavelength of light) and fertile areas of science. What are metamaterials? Today this term can show extreme anisotropy. Metamaterials can be tuned and switched, and can be reconfigured as arrays as well as at the Original content from this work may be used under the terms individual metamolecule level. of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and In a historically short interval of time, from the onset of the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. the twenty-first century, metamaterials have allowed an 2040-8978/17/084009+18$33.00 1 © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK J. Opt. 19 (2017) 084009 N I Zheludev unprecedented array of fundamentally important achievements. This includes the discoveries of materials with a negative index of refraction, optical magnetism and asymmetric transmission. Metamaterials have allowed the observation of toroidal moments and optical anapoles in electrodynamics. Media with hyperbolic dispersion and an epsilon near zero were first identified in metamaterials, and they have stimulated research on topological phenomena in optics, as well as making possible the arbitrary control of light trajectories in new photonic applications such as cloaking devices. Who could have anticipated twenty years ago that the mature fields of optics and electromagnetism would be reborn? The new findings now require physics courses and textbooks on optics, electro- magnetism and beyond to be re-written. From a more practical perspective, metamaterials can control light propagation in free space and waveguides, and can be used Figure 1. Contact sheets of the first photonic metamaterial samples to manipulate electromagnetic wavefronts in applications such as developed at the University of Southampton (N I Zheludev, D focusing, signal multiplexing, data processing and holography. Bagnall and A Potts, 3 September 2001). Metamaterials are being developed that control light with external electric and magnetic signals, and they can be made extremely metamaterials [7]. It talked about ‘a bilayered quasiplanar efficient in absorbing and harvesting it. Metamaterials can metallic microstructure, comprising an ensemble of fully amplify and generate coherent and incoherent light and can be metallic ‘molecules’ with inductive coupling between two exploited to control light with light using record-breaking engi- parts of the molecule that show strong optical rotatory power’ neered nonlinearities of the novel nanostructures. They can also (figure 1). The universality and power of this idea became be used to convert and mix light frequencies and tailor the field evident in the years that followed1. structure at their interfaces. From the very beginning of our work on structural In the early days of research, metamaterials were constructed materials, we wanted to develop functional materials for the by arranging sub-wavelength resonators (metamolecules) in two optical part of the spectrum, and later adopted metamaterials or three dimensional arrays. The majority of work published terminology. Working on the optical part of the spectrum was before 2012 explored metamaterial structures based on metals. A a tough proposition, as it required fabrication at the sub- much wider range of material is now used to construct meta- wavelength level, and thus nanoscale finesse was needed to materials. Metamaterials are now being made from metals, develop the structures. We were very lucky to have at superconductors, dielectrics, semiconductors, graphene and car- Southampton a fully fledged silicon foundry, and in 2001 bon nanotubes, polymers and liquid crystals, conventional started our journey into the exciting world of experimental liquids, such as water and molten mercury, gallium, oxides and research on metamaterials by fabricating two-dimensional nitrides, chalcogenides, perovskites and topological insulators. micron-scale arrays of planar chiral ‘gammadion’ and split- ring metamolecules (see figure 1). We are not aware of any other groups who were fabricating optical metamaterial Earlier days, from optics to microwaves and back nanostructures at that time. This was an important and pro- mising step, but not yet sufficient to create truly homogeneous At the University of Southampton we came to work on what optical metamaterials: the available resolution was limited to became known as the field of metamaterials at a very early stage. about one micron. With these metamaterial structures in hand, This activity grew from our interests in nanophotonics and some of which were left-right asymmetric, we decided to chirality. In particular, our earlier studies in linear and nonlinear experimentally study diffractive polarization phenomena, a polarization phenomena in chiral media [4] ledtoakeeninterest field in which no other group had previously expressed in artificial (metamaterial) chirality at the beginning stages of the interest2. In August 2002 we submitted a paper [9] entitled discipline. Our past work on the nanophotonics of structural ‘Optical manifestations of planar chirality’. In essence, we transformation [5] seeded our later interest in phase-change reported the observation of two-dimensional optical activity: metamaterials. The highly talented Kevin MacDonald and Vassili that a planar chiral structure (i.e. one that cannot be Fedotov, who were to become key players in the
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