Author(s): M. S. Mirmoosa, S. Yu. Kosulnikov, and C. R. Simovski
In this paper, we study a topological phase transition in a wire medium operating at infrared frequencies. This transition occurs in the reciprocal space between the indefinite (open-surface) regime of the metamaterial and its dielectric (closed-surface) regime. Due to the spatial dispersion inheren…
[Phys. Rev. B 92, 075139] Published Wed Aug 26, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.075139

Author(s): Toshihiro Nakanishi and Masao Kitano

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has been extensively investigated in atomic systems, to control transmission through optical components and the velocities of “slow light” packets. The authors realize EIT using a metamaterial that turns transparent with the incidence of an auxiliary electromagnetic wave, in the same manner as from the original, atomic EIT effect. This approach could lead to applications including the storage of electromagnetic waves (the ultimate slowing of light) across a wide frequency range for optical computing.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 024013] Published Fri Aug 21, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.024013

Author(s): Yong Li, Xue Jiang, Bin Liang, Jian-chun Cheng, and Likun Zhang

Manipulating sound waves is key in applications such as ultrasound imaging and nondestructive testing. To this end, the authors present an acoustic phased array using a metascreen that transmits sound energy from a single source and steers the outgoing wavefront in the desired direction. Significantly, this metascreen does not itself contain any source of sound, unlike a conventional phased array with many individual sources. This passive array is therefore notably appealing for its simplicity, low cost, and good acoustic performance.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 024003] Published Thu Aug 06, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.024003

Author(s): D. Costantini, A. Lefebvre, A.-L. Coutrot, I. Moldovan-Doyen, J.-P. Hugonin, S. Boutami, F. Marquier, H. Benisty, and J.-J. Greffet

Incandescent sources typically emit broadband light in all directions. Most of this radiation is lost for applications in the infrared region, such as spectroscopy or compositional analysis. Here the authors control both the spatial and temporal coherence of blackbody radiation with a plasmonic metasurface that emits a narrow band of frequencies in a small solid angle. This system operates reliably at 600 °C using CMOS-compatible materials, inviting the development of compact, efficient, and cheap infrared sources and gas detectors.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 014023] Published Thu Jul 30, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.014023

Author(s): Lu Zhao, Jianfeng Wang, Junwei Liu, Yong Xu, Bing-Lin Gu, Qi-Kun Xue, and Wenhui Duan

Inspired by helicity dependent optical phenomena in chiral metamaterials the authors exploit the idea of helicity degree of freedom of Dirac fermions. They perform a first-principles study of SnTe films and show that giant helicity splitting in the band structures can be induced under moderate electric field. They suggest using helicity as an extra degree of freedom for helicity-resolved filtering and focusing of Dirac fermions.

[Phys. Rev. B 92, 041408(R)] Published Tue Jul 21, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.041408

Author(s): Dimitrios L. Sounas, Romain Fleury, and Andrea Al`u

Rendering things invisible has turned out to be in the domain of science, not magic. The authors offer an approach to cloaking based on a simple conformal surface wrapped around the object of interest. Their theory shows that by covering the object with a stealth surface on the illuminated side, and a time-reversed version of the same surface on the shadowed side, one can realize ideal cloaking, independent of the size of the object, in a robust, broadband, ultrathin, and lossless technology.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 014005] Published Thu Jul 16, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.014005

Author(s): V. S. Asadchy, I. A. Faniayeu, Y. Ra’di, S. A. Khakhomov, I. V. Semchenko, and S. A. Tretyakov

An array of helical elements absorbs radiation of a certain frequency while casting no shadow in light over a range of other frequencies.

[Phys. Rev. X 5, 031005] Published Tue Jul 14, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.031005

Author(s): Ming Zhou, Soongyu Yi, Ting Shan Luk, Qiaoqiang Gan, Shanhui Fan, and Zongfu Yu
When wave effects of thermal photons become significant, thermal emitters can exhibit intriguing coherent effects. Here, we show that the superradiant emission, which was originally found in quantum emitters, can be realized in resonant thermal emitters. Similar to the superradiance in quantum emitt…
[Phys. Rev. B 92, 024302] Published Mon Jul 13, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.024302

Author(s): Bogdan-Ioan Popa, Durvesh Shinde, Adam Konneker, and Steven A. Cummer
A major limitation of current acoustic metamaterials is that their acoustic properties are either locked into place once fabricated or are only modestly tunable, tying them to the particular application for which they are designed. We present a design approach that yields active metamaterials whose …
[Phys. Rev. B 91, 220303(R)] Published Tue Jun 30, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.220303

Author(s): Weiwei Kan, Victor M. Garc'ia-Chocano, F. Cervera, Bin Liang, Xin-ye Zou, Lei-lei Yin, Jianchun Cheng, and Jos'e S'anchez-Dehesa

Concepts from optics aimed at creating “invisibility cloaks” are being extended to acoustics for soundproofing and stealth technology, with the same goal of passing waves around an object with no perceptible perturbation. The authors employ transformation acoustics to design and demonstrate a broadband, three-dimensional cloak that renders an object in an open cavity with hard boundaries nearly undetectable. Their actual cloak is an acoustic metamaterial made simply of stacked sheets of common acrylic plastic, with millimeter-scale features.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 064019] Published Fri Jun 26, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.3.064019

Author(s): Muamer Kadic, Robert Schittny, Tiemo B"uckmann, Christian Kern, and Martin Wegener

Porous metamaterials exhibit dramatic changes in their Hall voltage relative to their bulk material. Researchers theoretically investigate this result and suggest techniques for experimental verification.

[Phys. Rev. X 5, 021030] Published Mon Jun 22, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.021030

Author(s): Jia Ningyuan, Clai Owens, Ariel Sommer, David Schuster, and Jonathan Simon

The surface states of topological insulators are protected from backscattering, making them a promising resource for computing and materials science. This topological protection is now demonstrated in a radio-frequency circuit.

[Phys. Rev. X 5, 021031] Published Mon Jun 22, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.021031

Author(s): Goran Isi'c, Borislav Vasi'c, Dimitrios C. Zografopoulos, Romeo Beccherelli, and Rados Gaji'c

Technology to efficiently handle light in the terahertz range is sought for a wide range of applications, including nondestructive testing, medical diagnostics, and weapons detection. Liquid-crystal devices are cheap and promising, but currently suffer from high operating voltage and long response times. The authors exploit coupling between periodically arranged patch resonators and external fields to propose a low-voltage absorber whose reflectance can be modulated from nearly 0 to 90%, with switching times around 50 ms–a dramatic improvement over existing technology that stands to enable new, low-cost, highly tunable terahertz devices.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 064007] Published Thu Jun 11, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.3.064007

Author(s): Hadiseh Alaeian and Jennifer A. Dionne
We investigate the effect of parity-time (PT) symmetric optical potentials on the radiation of achiral and chiral dipole sources. Two properties unique to PT-symmetric potentials are observed. First, the dipole can be tuned to behave as a strong optical emitter or absorber based on the non-Hermitici…
[Phys. Rev. B 91, 245108] Published Fri Jun 05, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.245108

Author(s): Hao Shen, Dylan Lu, Bryan VanSaders, Jimmy J. Kan, Hongxing Xu, Eric E. Fullerton, and Zhaowei Liu

Electromagnetic scattering has applications in astrophysics, atmospheric science, and medical imaging. Researchers design a metamaterial that exhibits anomalously weak scattering over a band of optical frequencies.

[Phys. Rev. X 5, 021021] Published Fri May 29, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.021021

Author(s): C. Kurter, T. Lan, L. Sarytchev, and Steven M. Anlage

Radio-frequency metamaterials with negative magnetic response hold great promise for both reducing the size and improving the performance of antennas for wireless applications. Using temperature to modify the superfluid density in a three-dimensional superconducting metamaterial, the authors demonstrate continuous in situ tunability of the effective permeability, from negative to positive values, without resorting to lossy lumped elements.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 054010] Published Thu May 28, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.3.054010

Author(s): Sergey S. Kruk, Alexander N. Poddubny, David A. Powell, Christian Helgert, Manuel Decker, Thomas Pertsch, Dragomir N. Neshev, and Yuri S. Kivshar
Optical metasurfaces have become a new paradigm for creating flat optical devices. While being typically an order of magnitude thinner than the wavelength of light, metasurfaces allow control of the phase of propagating light waves across the full 2

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.195401

Author(s): Alexey A. Basharin, Maria Kafesaki, Eleftherios N. Economou, Costas M. Soukoulis, Vassili A. Fedotov, Vassili Savinov, and Nikolay I. Zheludev

Many biological structures, from macromolecules to proteins, as well as a number of solid-state systems including ferroelectric and ferro nano- and microstructures, possess static toroidal shapes. A theoretical study shows that the dynamic toroidal dipoles constructed from ionic crystals can be used to engineer metamaterials to control how electromagnetic radiation is scattered and transmitted.

[Phys. Rev. X 5, 011036] Published Fri Mar 27, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.011036

Author(s): Alexander S. Shalin, Pavel Ginzburg, Alexey A. Orlov, Ivan Iorsh, Pavel A. Belov, Yuri S. Kivshar, and Anatoly V. Zayats
Concealing objects by making them invisible to an external electromagnetic probe is coined by the term “cloaking.” Cloaking devices, having numerous potential applications, are still facing challenges in realization, especially in the visible spectral range. In particular, inherent losses and extrem…
[Phys. Rev. B 91, 125426] Published Thu Mar 19, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.91.125426

Author(s): Y. Ra’di, C. R. Simovski, and S. A. Tretyakov

In recent years we have learned to fabricate structures smaller than electromagnetic wavelengths, and to assemble them into metamaterials with exotic optical properties for previously unimaginable applications. One such property is perfect absorption of incident light, with no reflection or transmission, across many wavelengths. The authors review the physics, design principles, and classification of thin perfect absorbers, and outline avenues for progress.

[Phys. Rev. Applied 3, 037001] Published Tue Mar 17, 2015

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.3.037001