Controlling the electromagnetic properties of materials, going beyond the limit that is attainable with naturally existing substances, has become a reality with the advent of metamaterials. The range of various structured artificial 'atoms' has promised a vast variety of otherwise unexpected physical phenomena, among which the experimental realization of a negative refractive index has been one of the main foci thus far. Expanding the refractive index into a high positive regime will complete the spectrum of achievable refractive index and provide more design flexibility for transformation optics. Naturally existing transparent materials possess small positive indices of refraction, except for a few semiconductors and insulators, such as lead sulphide or strontium titanate, that exhibit a rather high peak refractive index at mid- and far-infrared frequencies. Previous approaches using metamaterials were not successful in realizing broadband high refractive indices. A broadband high-refractive-index metamaterial structure was theoretically investigated only recently, but the proposed structure does not lend itself to easy implementation. Here we demonstrate that a broadband, extremely high index of refraction can be realized from large-area, free-standing, flexible terahertz metamaterials composed of strongly coupled unit cells. By drastically increasing the effective permittivity through strong capacitive coupling and decreasing the diamagnetic response with a thin metallic structure in the unit cell, a peak refractive index of 38.6 along with a low-frequency quasi-static value of over 20 were experimentally realized for a single-layer terahertz metamaterial, while maintaining low losses. As a natural extension of these single-layer metamaterials, we fabricated quasi-three-dimensional high-refractive-index metamaterials, and obtained a maximum bulk refractive index of 33.2 along with a value of around 8 at the quasi-static limit.

We have demonstrated a novel multiwavelength lasing scheme in which a Brillouin erbium-fiber laser with a Sagnac loop mirror and a metal-coated planar mirror were used. The Sagnac loop permitted the simultaneous presence of a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) pump and Stokes lines within the loop and thus generated high-order Stokes and anti-Stokes waves through a four-wave mixing (FWM) process. A total of 34 lines of Stokes and anti-Stokes waves with 0.08-nm line spacing was generated through the SBS and FWM processes with 1.5-mW SBS pump power at 1561 nm and 80-mW erbium-doped-fiber pump power.

Terahertz time‐domain spectroscopy has been used to study the optical and dielectric properties of three chalcogenide glasses: Ge30As8Ga2Se60, Ge35Ga5Se60, and Ge10As20S70. The absorption coefficients α(ν), complex refractive index n(ν), and complex dielectric constants ɛ(ν) were measured in a frequency range from 0.3 THz to 1.5 THz. The measured real refractive indices were fitted using a Sellmeier equation. The results show that the Sellmeier equation fits well with the data throughout the frequency range and imply that the phonon modes of glasses vary with the glass compositions. The theory of far‐infrared absorption in amorphous materials is used to analyze the results and to understand the differences in THz absorption among the sample glasses.

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Lead zirconium titanate (PbZr 0.52 Ti 0.48 O 3 and PbZr 0.30 Ti 0.70 O 3 ) films were prepared on MgO (100) substrate by the sol-gel method. Film Thickness, microstructure and crystalline structure of the films were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analysis, respectively. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy has been used to investigate the dielectric properties of ferroelectric Pb(Zr, Ti)O 3 thin films in the frequency range of 0.2 to 2.0 THz.