Electromagnetic equivalent model for phase conjugate mirror based on the utilization of left-handed material

Abstract

An electromagnetic equivalent model for the phase conjugate mirror (PCM) is proposed in this paper. The model is based on the unique property of the isotropic left-handed material (LHM) -the ability of LHM to reverse the phase factors of propagative waves. We show that a PCM interface can be substituted with a LHM-RHM (right-handed material) interface and associated image sources and objects in the LHM. This equivalent model is fully equivalent in the treatment of propagative wave components. However, we note that the presence of evanescent wave components can lead to undesirably surface resonance at the LHM-RHM interface. This artefact can be kept well bounded by introducing a small refractive index mismatch between the LHM and RHM. We demonstrate the usefulness of this model by modelling several representative scenarios of light patterns interacting with a PCM. The simulations were performed by applying the equivalent model to a commercial finite element method (FEM) software. This equivalent model also points to the intriguing possibility of realizing some unique LHM based systems in the optical domain by substituting a PCM in place of a LHM-RHM interface.

A phase conjugate mirror inspired approach for building cloaking structures with left-handed materials

“…The structure here also relies on the specific knowledge of both the shape and the material properties of the lossless object being concealed. The physical insight of the proposed structure can be explained through the equivalency between the PCM and the RHM–LHM interface10. To begin with, let us consider a simple scenario that is depicted in Fig.1 (a).…”

“…1(a) into the proposed cloaking structure, as illustrated in Fig.1 (b) and (c) respectively. Firstly, we replace the PCM with a left-handed material (LHM, with negative permittivity and permeability) and an appropriately altered duplicate of the space before the PCM interface10, as show in Fig. 1(b).…”

“…1(b) is an equivalent model of the structure in Fig. 1(a) in terms of their interaction with propagative components of the EM field10. Briefly, this equivalency can be appreciated through the following analogy: the electric field distribution of a point charge placed at a distance from a grounded conductive interface can be solved by replacing the interface by a virtual point charge with the opposite charge at the same distance behind the interface.…”

“…We recently showed that the interface between a matched positive index material (or right-handed material (RHM)) and a negative index material (or left-handed material (LHM)) interacts with propagative electromagnetic (EM) fields in ways that are very similar to a PCM10. This prompts us to explore the possibility of duplicating the anti-scattering characteristics of the PCM with novel and useful RHM-LHM structures.…”

Diffraction of Waves by a Wedge with Phase Conjugate Faces

“…The quantum optical theory of the phase conjugate surfaces is outlined by some authors [6,7]. Zheng et al proposed an electromagnetic model for the scattering of waves by a phase conjugate mirror [8].…”