Quantum nanophotonics using hyperbolic metamaterials

Abstract

Engineering the optical properties using artificial nanostructured media known as metamaterials has led to breakthrough devices with capabilities from super-resolution imaging to invisibility. In this article, we review metamaterials for quantum nanophotonic applications, a recent development in the field. This seeks to address many challenges in the field of quantum optics using recent advances in nanophotonics and nanofabrication. We focus on the class of nanostructured media with hyperbolic dispersion that have emerged as one of the most promising metamaterials with a multitude of practical applications from subwavelength imaging, nanoscale waveguiding, biosensing to nonlinear switching. We present the various design and characterization principles of hyperbolic metamaterials and explain the most important property of such media: a broadband enhancement in the electromagnetic density of states. We review several recent experiments that have explored this phenomenon using spontaneous emission from dye molecules and quantum dots. We finally point to future applications of hyperbolic metamaterials of using the broadband enhancement in the spontaneous emission to construct single photon sources. arXiv:1204.5529v2 [physics.optics]

Conical diffraction and the dispersion surface of hyperbolic metamaterials

“…In the final case, where two of the three indices are negative, Fig. 1(f), there is again a single dispersion surface which is a type two hyperboloid [1] with no singularities. This single dispersion surface describes one polarization which can propagate in the material.…”

“…They can be manufactured relatively simply from alternating layers of metal and dielectric, or by embedding metal rods in a dielectric background [1,2]. HMMs have recently been shown to have unique properties, described by effective medium theory [3], including a broadband infinite density of states [4], arbitrarily large values of the wave vector [5], and negative refraction [2,6].…”

Enhanced energy transfer by near-field coupling of a nanostructured metamaterial with a graphene-covered plate

“…Recent studies on hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], which exhibit large photonic local density of states, show the promise in enhancing the near-field radiative transfer by means other than resonant coupling, while the strong enhancement also requires matching hyperbolic behaviors for the emitter and receiver materials. It is still a challenge to greatly enhance the performance of near-field thermophotovoltaic (TPV) by either resonance coupling of SPP/SPhP or strong hyperbolic modes because of inherent mismatch in the dissimilar optical properties of the emitter and cell.…”

Exhibition of circular Bragg phenomenon by hyperbolic, dielectric, structurally chiral materials

“…Metal nanowire arrays 18 and periodic metal/ dielectric multilayers 19 provide examples of manufactured anisotropic dielectric materials whose effective permittivity dyadics have indefinite real parts. 20 Periodic graphene/dielectric multilayers have also been proffered as candidates. 21 Although dissipation due to conduction in metals and graphene has been predicted to be offsetable by using dielectric materials with optical gain, 22 the effective-medium approximations underlying such predictions must be handled with some care.…”