Epsilon-Near-Zero Nanoantennas

Abstract

In this paper the design of Epsilon Near Zero (ENZ) antennas, working in the infrared and optical regime, is presented. Two different structures are considered: the classical PEC antenna and the dielectric dipole covered by ENZ material antenna. The main crucial aspect concerning this paper is the possibility to reproduce the same behavior of a classical half-wavelength dipole also for shorter dimensions. The electromagnetic behavior of the structure (in terms of radiation efficiency, gain and bandwidth) becomes independent from its geometry. The proposed structure offers great potential in a wide variety of practical application fields such as detection and sensing, communications applications.

Electromagnetic Nanoparticles for Sensing and Medical Diagnostic Applications

“…In the case of an NZI media, the starting effective refractive index is near zero and the relative change caused by the modification of the background material permittivity will be very large. Therefore, the resulting refractive index will be approximately equal to the permittivity change due to the background material [ 113 , 114 ]. In this kind of structure two phenomena are both existing: the LSPR effect responsible for the electric field enhancement around the particle and the NZI effect that leads the electric field lines outside the core particle (the effective structure permittivity has a very low value at the resonant frequency).…”