Superconducting metamaterials

Abstract

Metamaterials, i.e. artificial, man-made media designed to achieve properties not available in natural materials, have been the focus of intense research during the last two decades. Many properties have been discovered and multiple designs have been devised that lead to multiple conceptual and practical applications. Superconducting metamaterials made of superconducting metals have the advantage of ultra low losses, a highly desirable feature. The additional use of the celebrated Josephson effect and SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) configurations enrich the domain of superconducting metamaterials and produce further specificity and functionality. SQUID-based metamaterials are both theoretically investigated but also fabricated and analyzed experimentally in many laboratories and exciting new phenomena have been found both in the classical and quantum realms. The enticing feature of a SQUID is that it is a unique nonlinear oscillator that can be actually manipulated through multiple external means. This domain flexibility is inherited to SQUID-based metamaterials and metasurfaces, i.e. extended units that contain a large arrangement of SQUIDs in various interaction configurations. Such a unit can be viewed theoretically as an assembly of weakly coupled nonlinear oscillators and as such presents a nonlinear dynamics laboratory where numerous, classical as well as quantum complex, spatio-temporal phenomena may be explored. In this review we focus primarily on SQUID-based superconducting metamaterials and present basic properties related to their individual and collective responses to external drives; the work summarized here is primarily theoretical and computational with nevertheless explicit presentation of recent experimental works. We start by showing how a SQUID-based system acts as a genuine metamaterial with right as well as left handed properties, demonstrate that the intrinsic Josephson nonlinearity leads to wide-band tunability, intrinsic nonlinear as well as flat band localization. We explore further exciting properties such as multistability and self-organization and the emergence of counter-intuitive chimera states of selective, partial organization. We then dwell into the truly quantum regime and explore the interaction of electromagnetic pulses with superconducting qubit units where the coupling between the two yields phenomena such as self-induced transparency and superradiance. We thus attempt to present the rich behavior of coupled superconducting units and point to their basic properties and practical utility. Abstract1 Contents 2 1. High-frequency magnetism, in particular, exhibited by magnetic metamaterials, is considered one of the "forbidden fruits" in the Tree of Knowledge that has been brought forth by metamaterial research 9 . Their unique properties allow them to form a material base for other functional devices with tuning and switching capabilities 9,10,11 . The scientific activity on metamaterials which has exploded since their first experimental demonstration 12,13...

Multistable dissipative breathers and collective states in SQUID Lieb metamaterials

“…The superconducting metamaterials, a particular class of artificial mediums which relay on the sensitivity of the superconducting state reached by their constituting elements at low temperatures, have recently been the focus of considerable research efforts [1][2][3]. The superconducting analogue of conventional (metallic) metamaterials, which can become nonlinear with the insertions of appropriate electronic components [4,5], are the SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) metamaterials.…”

Surface-polaritonic phase singularities and multimode polaritonic frequency combs via dark rogue-wave excitation in hybrid plasmonic waveguide

“…Consequently, our waveguide configuration acts as a bimodal polaritonic frequency-comb generator and high-speed phase rotator, thereby opening prospects for phase singularities in nanophotonic and quantum communication devices.field [18]. In the past few decades, experimental and theoretical investigations(for an intuitive explanation of dealing with plasmonic loss for waveguide application, see [19]) report stable propagation of linear and nonlinear SPWs employing ultra-low loss metallic-type layers such as single-crystal [20] and mono-crystal [21] metallic film, structured Fano metamaterials [22], semiconductor metamaterials [23] and superconducting metamaterials [24]. These investigations reveal that plasmonic excitation and stable propagation need minimal metallic nanostructure roughness [25].…”

Dynamic Terahertz Plasmonics Enabled by Phase‐Change Materials

“…[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] Phase-change materials (PCMs) exhibiting drastic and abrupt transitions of the physical properties under certain conditions are also considered promising candidates to develop reconfigurable THz modulation devices [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] because the phase-change phenomena accompany shifts of the electrical/optical conductivities and sometimes the internal material structure. If any active material has multiple phases controlled by thermal, electrical, or electromagnetic means, then this material can be utilized to realize various functionalities of plasmonic structures.…”

“…For example, semiconductors or graphene have been widely exploited to achieve tunable THz plasmonic systems. [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] Phase-change materials (PCMs) exhibiting drastic and abrupt transitions of the physical properties under certain conditions are also considered promising candidates to develop reconfigurable THz modulation devices [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] because the phase-change phenomena accompany shifts of the electrical/optical conductivities and sometimes the internal material structure.…”